In a massive blow to plans for a new village hall, the county council has pulled the plug on a transfer of land to a village hall association.

Find out about planning applications that affect you by visiting the Public Notice Portal.

Four years of consultations and planning, hopes and aspirations went down the plughole this week when the agreement to hand over the site of the former Raglan School to the Raglan Village Hall Association (RHVA) ran out of time.Consultation for a new village hall began in 2014 when members of the RVHA looked at the options open to them and after consultation with residents, it was felt that building a new hall on the site of the old school was the best option for building a hall fit for purpose.It relied upon a community asset transfer from Monmouthshire County Council (MCC), subject to continued progress in getting a hall built. A first round of lottery funding was enough to get the project off the ground and plans were drawn up and passed in 2017 for a £1.2m build.The design was "cutting-edge but cost effective" within the traditional village setting and offered up-to-date facilities for Raglan and the surrounding area.The finalised designs and planning permission formed the second round of funding to the BIG Lottery (people and places), and to other funders including the Welsh Government. Once funding was secured, the site would be transferred by MCC to the RHVA and construction could begin.The submission was for £0.5m, with the rest of the estimated £0.7m to come from match-funding, loans and local fundraising activities.But a bitter blow came in December 2017 when the second funding application was unsuccessful.Undeterred, the village hall association set about looking at alternative funding options and in 2018, with new committee members on board, they polled villagers who said a less ambitious design would be more practical given the time restriction on the transfer.The former chair and trustee Chris Butler-Donnelly warned at the time that if funding wasn’t secured by July 2019, the transfer would not take place, leaving the village without the option to build on the central site.With Simon McFadden now holding the reins, they regrouped and requested more time from MCC given that securing funding was the key to success in securing the plot and were granted another two years.In March MCC confirmed they were happy with progress and would be submitting a report to Cabinet in July recommending an extension. "Then suddenly out of the blue they wrote and withdrew the extension," said Andrew Johnson.Mr McFadden confirmed: "Their education department have identified an alternative use" for the site and despite a plea for support from chief executive Paul Matthews, he could not help.A spokesman for MCC told the Beacon: "The agreement between RVHA and the council was for an initial four-year period. This was extended by an additional year. This extended period has now come to an end. As a result, the council is now considering other options for the building to ensure a viable, purposeful, sustainable community facility which the community will be able to use. No decisions will be made over the next few weeks."Planning permission runs out in 2022.A meeting has been called for tonight, Wednesday 14th August at the old school in Raglan.