A COMMUNITY which has been without a village hall for 10 years was celebrating today after winning at least £125,000 to finally start building one.

Villagers in Weir have been trying to raise money for a new community centre on the site of the former Doals Church, in Burnley Road, for a decade.

And now they have won a six-figure cash windfall from a competition run by the Waste Recycling Group, one of the country's leading waste management services companies.

The Weir Community Partnership (WCP), which is spearheading the campaign, saw off bids from more than 70 groups to reach the final five.

Three of the finalists will receive £250,000, but just for being one of the shortlisted five, the WCP has won £125,000 for the village.

Committee member and minister, the Rev Neil Hepworth, said: "This is fantastic news and a great boost to many years of hard work by the Baptist Church initially, and now the WCP.

"Just getting into the final five will raise our fundraising profile, although we'll be hoping to collect one of the £250,000 prizes.

"We've already identified a fine site for our new hall in the centre of the village and drawn up plans for a building that will cost £600,000."

But the village nearly missed out on the competition after almost leaving it too late to post their entry.

WCP chairman David Hampson said: "We had two days to go until the deadline at the end of July, but I managed to just get our entry sorted out in time.

"It was close, but we were fairly confident from the start.

"There was only so far the Baptist Church could go with an application and it soon became clear that we had to be moving together as a socially- cohesive community."

The £1million prize money comes from a tax credit scheme which allows waste management companies to invest 6per cent of their landfill tax bill in community and environmental projects.