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Grouville To Spend £450K On New Roof

Grouville Parish Hall needs a new roof, however, it is coming at a cost of £450,000.

People are wondering why the roof is costing so much to refurbish, but it is down to a multitude of reasons.

The roof tiles are made from unique Jersey granite, and due to the listed status of the building, this needs to be maintained.

Grouville Parish Hall is also a large building with a large roof, meaning the amount of tiles needed will cost a significant amount, especially with construction.

Constable of Grouville, Mark Labey, says the parish committee is trying to remedy some of the situations now, but it will take time.

"As iconic and lovely my beautiful old parish hall is, and I'm very proud of it, it has its problems.

"It's built on the side of a hill, its car park is too sloping and there's all sorts of things and access points are all very old and not great for the disabled."

Special contractors have also been hired to help with the 19th Century building.

Horn Brothers have previously worked with St Thomas' Cathedral and the Maritime Museum, so have previously worked on heritage sites.

The constable says he is a great believer in 'little and often' in terms of building maintenance.

"We've seen from States owned buildings like the Opera House when you let things go, they tend to build up and build up to the point you have to gut the building itself and start from scratch.

"I'm not a believer in that and I'm sure my rates payers aren't either," he chuckles, "we'd rather do these jobs little and often and keep on top of it."

Grouville has a lot on the list for future repairs, as there is another roof restoration project for the church.

Alongside that, the cemetery walls are slowly collapsing, the gate needs fixing as they cannot be used and a fountain needs rebuilding.

Similarly to the other parishes, refurbishments can only be done when the committee has enough funding.

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