Ashington Veterans and Elders Institute will get £55,000 extension to increase capacity for events

The group will soon start work on an extension to its Reiverdale Road facilities that it hopes will allow for more, bigger capacity events and activities.

Over the last five years the institute has introduced many new activities alongside its well-established snooker facilities.

Keith Green, secretary of Ashington Veterans and Elders Institute, said: “We always felt we would be able to get more people into these events if we had more space.

“Demand is high and we are always putting the ‘sold out’ signs up as soon as we start selling tickets.

“We also felt we would be able to get other activity groups using a larger separate room if we had one.

“We have had many enquiries from groups wanting to use our premises, but we have had to turn them away because our current meeting room is too small. Our new meeting room will be three times the size of our current one.”

The extension is expected to cost over £55,000 but the organisation has managed to secure funding from a number of sources, including The Wolfson Foundation, Ashington Leisure Partnership, The Ballinger Trust, The National Lottery Community Fund, The Coquet Fund at The Community Foundation, and Northumberland County Council Community Chest.

Work will start at the end of March once the snooker season finishes and is expected to be complete by early July.

The group also recently created a community garden onto the side and rear of the building, which has proved popular with members and was recognised with an award at last year’s Northumbria in Bloom.

Keith said: “The public have supported our activities in huge numbers in recent years, and membership is thriving.

“We cannot wait to see what extra activities we can provide once the extension is completed.

“Our events group will soon be contacting potential new users and our already popular established activities will see numbers growing, there is no doubt about that.

“We expect membership numbers to grow too. At the moment we have over 100 on our books, but we anticipate that to increase once we get a larger institute.”