PEOPLE at Sutton-under-Whitestonecliffe are being given what may be their last chance to have a say on the future of their village institute.

An extraordinary general meeting in the institute on Monday (7.30) will to try to resolve a complicated five-year story which has seen the future of both the hall and the village school closely bound up.

As many villagers as possible are being urged to attend the meeting, which will discuss a suggestion that the entire site of the present village hall should be sold and the proceeds used to develop new premises in the Whitestonecliffe Garage, which is to close.

If villagers support a motion that the institute trustees should try to find enough money to make an offer for the garage, discussion will centre on ways of raising temporary funds to buy and hold the property while design work, planning requirements and other legal issues are explored.

Further discussion will include an offer by some parents to buy part of the present village hall site for a school play area and sell the remaining institute land for some form of low-cost housing.

In October 2003, the village hall trustees, school governors and county council education department agreed in principle the terms of a ten-year lease which would allow some institute land to be used by the school for a temporary play area and the erection of portable cabins while school buildings were demolished and rebuilt.

The lease, which was expected to be signed early in 2004, contained a break clause allowing the institute to serve a minimum of three months' notice any time after May so that work could start on the new hall as soon as new school buildings were finished.

The programme was hit by postponement of the school building programme, however, and institute trustees, anxious to improve the deteriorating condition of their premises, found that expected grants from the county and district councils had not materialised.

Last November, acting on legal advice, the trustees refused to sign the lease without the recommended safeguard of an opt-out clause enabling them to release the value of some of their land to raise money for a new hall if enough funds could not be raised in other ways.

If the meeting on Monday does not support the idea of a new hall in the garage, villagers will be asked to consider an objection by the school to the decision not to sign the playground lease on the present site.

In a letter to villagers, institute chairman Tony Thomas and treasurer Gillian Wright say the garage site has many advantages because it can be adapted more easily than replacing the hall, it is a central position with access for everyone and there is adequate off-road parking.

Grants for alterations would be easier to obtain. It could also incorporate a post office.

The letter adds that the school could legitimately acquire part of the present institute land for a play area because the charity would be replacing it with an equivalent asset. The school would have more flexibility and freedom for design and layout.