A community hall could find itself in "dire straits" by the end of the year if funding cannot be found.

St Mary's Church House Hall had to close last year with groups and organisations unable to book hire the hall due to lockdown.

Monty Crook, chairman of St Mary's Church House Hall Trust which runs the hall on South Street, has been reaching out to organisations to see if the hall can get funding and joined Bridport Town Council's best value and scrutiny sub-committee to ask for help.

He said: "We, along with many bodies, suffered greatly last year with lockdown - our income dropped severely and when we had to close there were certain costs we had to continue, so our reserves have also dropped considerably.

"I think, towards the end of the year, if it's as bad as last year was… we could be in dire straits by the end of the year.

"I have been reaching out to everyone I can think of, both nationally and locally, to see if we can get some additional funding to help us through.

"Primarily I am looking for funding to help with our running costs, we have no other income apart from hire."

The hall is leased to the trust by Magna Housing at a peppercorn rent, but the trust is responsible for internal repairs, cleaning, maintenance, decoration and renewals. It employs a caretaker who has been furloughed whenever possible, except for a deep clean and some redecoration in early lockdown.

In a report sent to the town council by Mr Crook, he said the hall's main costs are about £10,000, which "do not drop appreciably even when the hall has to be closed". The hall was closed for a total of 196 days in 2020, with an additional 39 days of closure due to hirers and their clients not feeling able to return.

Hire income for the hall in 2020 was down by two thirds compared with 2019, with an annual loss of around £7,300, and reserves have halved.

The hall can reopen on April 12, but many groups and classes cannot restart until May 17.

Councillor Dave Rickard said that Bridport Town Council's reserves are £100,000 down and they are "all in the same boat" but suggested applying to the town council grants later this year when applications open in June.

He said: "It would be easier for us to give the hall some money if it was for a specific thing - our grants are normally linked to a project."

However, Mr Crook said the trust doesn't run any events, it just runs the hall and doesn't have any projects it can outline in grant applications.

Town clerk Will Austin said: "It may be that members want to look in a slightly different way how applications are submitted this year, I'm sure there will be lots of groups that will have been affected by Covid and will be coming forward with perhaps a similar request of the one Monty is making.

"One way we have looked at when we apply for external funding is to consider the recovery plan for our organisation as a project - how it's affected us, how we're going to address it over the coming months and year."

Mr Austin suggested he could liaise with Mr Crook on what the application could look like.

Cllr Rickard said the council had been looking at pulling together various organisations in Bridport to try and have an overarching support mechanism.

He added: "Our outside staff quite frequently do work for these organisations as part of our community work and it could well be, we hope, to take over the WI Hall. It might be that you could save some money by having a joint caretaker that would do both halls.

"It's not immediate funding, but it might over the following years help to recoup the money by making it more efficient in the way that all of us based in Bridport are managed."

Cllr Sarah Carney said: "Myself and Rose [Cllr Allwork] are very passionate about the lack of community places in Bridport and St Mary's Church Hall seems to be a very good community asset."

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