shows the preferred layout for these sports fields with the football pitches marked out over the outfield of the new cricket ground. This overlap would make the best use of the land, and the same field drainage system which would need to be installed would service both sports. Instead of just letting the drained water run away into the ditch, a new pond would be created, such that some of the water could be used in the summer for irrigating the cricket square, which would protect this valuable asset in time of any future droughts. Cricket and football facilities, especially for the village children, and for the development of girls’ and women’s teams, emerged from the initial village survey as the most popular requirements.

A multi-sport all-weather sports practice area and some hard courts for tennis also emerged as popular requirements, and there is plenty of room to fit these into the proposed plan if there is sufficient demand in the village for them. The general layout of the cricket and football pitches (which is by no means final in terms of detail) was established and agreed by the HVSA Committee with both the Parish Council and the Village Hall Management Committee, with the proviso that other facilities would be fitted in, according to the demand for them proved by the responses received to the Parish Plan Questionnaire, which will therefore contain some vital questions about residents’ preferences. Rather like fitting the biggest items into your bag first at the supermarket, before putting in the smaller ones, the smaller sports facilities can be fitted in very easily around the proposed preferred layout for the cricket and football pitches. With this concept plan drawn out on paper, the HVSA and the Parish Council have approached and held site meetings with the sports development officers of the SODC, EWCB, FA, and OPFA for technical advice and for advice about obtaining the necessary financial assistance. They have all agreed to support the project and are very enthusiastic. We learned that in order to obtain Sport England funding, we would need to build 4 completely separate changing rooms, with showers and WCs, to accommodate 4 separate teams of either sex, who may at one time play on the pitches. These changing rooms would not fit into the Scout Hut, and after a long site meeting with the Planning Services of SODC, it was agreed that the Parish Council and HVSA should make a good case for demolishing the Scout Hut, and re-building as a "replacement building" a much more energy-efficient, lower-profile, and low impact building just a few metres further away from the existing cricket pitch, so that the new building would serve as an impressive modern pavilion for both cricket pitches in summer, and for football and other sports throughout the year.

The Parish Council and the HVSA therefore approached TVEnergy for a free consultancy site visit by a specialist in renewable energy, and the advice received was that this pavilion could be made very economical to operate with solar heating and a ground source heat pump for the hot water, with photo-voltaic panels driving any air cooling system required in a hot summer, and possibly even with a large wind turbine located on the site to generate electricity when it is windy, to sell back to the electricity grid for additional income. Even without the turbine, the capital cost of the field drainage and the new pavilion would be in the region of £1.6 million, and as a preliminary requirement to raising this money from any of the usual sources, it is absolutely necessary to check that the village really wants to support this project, and that is the reason why there will be some very important questions for everyone to answer about sports facilities in the Parish Plan Questionnaire in June. Once we have this confirmation of what residents want, then a master plan will be drawn up, and the search for the money started. Without popular support in the village, this project will cease, but with widespread support to obtain the necessary grants, the new sports facilities could be delivered within 4 years, and the existing changing rooms could be removed from the Village Hall so that a better Clubroom and other community facilities for village residents could be built there, such as a coffee shop/tea room or an Internet access room for any residents to meet in during the week.

The HVSA’s aim is not simply just to improve the facilities for the village’s existing sports teams playing in their various leagues, but also to improve the free facilities which any child in the village can use without supervision, and to broaden the use of the new facilities to provide improved recreation and leisure for all kinds of people, including the older people in the village. With this in mind, an impressive start was