ARE you sitting comfortably?
Well, if you’re heading to St Mary’s Parish Hall, in Barnard Castle, for an event, you certainly will be.
Rather than buy new chairs, the parish hall committee arranged for 62 seats to be reupholstered instead.
The project cost £2,800. The parish hall committee raised £800 with the four Barnard Castle county councillors each giving £500 from their neighbourhood budgets.
The hall is used by a variety of community groups including Smuffies mother and toddlers, The Barnard Castle Christian Fellowship, Slimming World and Scottish Country dancing.
The church also uses the hall for fundraising and a range of social events.
Clare Trevett, of the parish hall committee, said the refurbished chairs were at least 30 years old.
“They have been well used and well sat upon, but rather than buy new ones, we decided to have them reupholstered.”
The work was done by dale upholsterer Steve Smith.
“He has done the job really well,” added Ms Trevett.
The new-look chairs now sit alongside others which have recently been donated to the hall, allowing the committee to run events with a capacity of 150 people.
Next on the agenda for the parish hall committee is the revamp of the downstairs Guild Room, with new windows and carpeting planned along with partitions and an upgrade to the heating.
![A COUNTY councillor is backing a campaign to get a pedestrian crossing in Staindrop. Frustrated parish councillors in the village summoned their county council representative Cllr George Richardson to their latest meeting to discuss several issues, including the call for a safe way to cross the A688. Earlier this year their request for a crossing was turned down by the county council’s highways officers. Parish council chairman Jonothan Raper described the reasons for the refusal as “spurious” and called on Cllr Richardson to support their campaign. He added: “One of the arguments they made was there is no clear line of desire when they studied the village – well this isn’t a clear line of desire because there isn’t a crossing, people cross whenever they can. “When the lollipop person was there, one of the things I noticed was people would walk all the way down to the lollipop person to cross the road to go to the shop or to go to the school.” He added a problem of parking at the primary school is exacerbated because people are too afraid to walk their children across the road. Cllr Richardson said he had supported previous attempts for a crossing point with the first being made about 15 years ago. He added: “We went fairly well down the road with that and they looked into it. The only recommended place was where the bus stop is and to get the visibility splays, people on the other side of the road would lose their parking. “That didn’t go down well so it just died a death.” Cllr Raper said he suspected the real reason for the officers’ refusal was the cost of installing a crossing. He added that much of the cost could be recovered from savings made on not having to employ a lollipop patrol. Cllr Raper said: “A lollipop person only provides a benefit of crossing for three hours of the day. You are getting 21 extra hours of crossing time [with a pedestrian crossing].” Cllr Richardson said he would raise the issue with the county council’s cabinet member for highways, Cllr John Shuttleworth.](https://teesdalemercury.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/georgeR-120x86.jpg)
