Are community lettings right for your school?

Are community lettings the right thing to do for your school? 

Community lettings can be a fantastic way for many schools to generate additional revenue from your facilities during periods that they’ll be naturally vacant, but are community lettings right for your school, specifically? 

Are community lettings right for your school? 

When considering whether community lettings are the right thing to do for your school, it’s important to think about the following aspects of hosting the community within your facilities: 

Is your school set within a good location? By ‘good location’, we don’t simply mean, close to a town or placed at the heart of a stunning village, we also mean: 

• Close to public transport links
• Easy to get to/find
• Well-known to the community

And, as a school, the answer to all of these is: ‘Yes! Of course”, as schools are typically set in fantastic locations, well-known to the locals and close to public transport. 

Do you have the right facilities? Hosting community lettings means hosting many different needs and requirements; some hirers, for example, will need access to good quality AV equipment and a generous performance space, whereas others will simply require lots of chairs & tables, and others may need access to sports equipment. Ensuring you possess a breadth of facilities to accommodate a range of needs is key to community lettings. Plus, almost all hirers will require accessible toilets/building access. 

On-site parking: It’s a big one! On-site parking makes venues for hire just that little bit more desirable to potential hirers. Although it’s not an essential requirement, on-site parking is a huge selling point. However, if this is something you can’t/don’t offer, is there a suitable alternative you can? Such as on-street parking or parking at a public site close by? 

Any restrictions already in place: Are there any restrictions in place, imposed by the local council, for example, on things like noise or timings? Pre-existing restrictions are extremely important things to look out for and consider when thinking about letting out your school to the community as you don’t want to upset local residents or your local council by, even accidentally!, doing something you shouldn’t (like allowing an event to continue beyond midnight!). 

Oftentimes, letting out your school facilities at weekends and during school holidays to outside events, clubs, groups and businesses, can be a fulfilling, enjoyable and lucrative venture for schools, but is also something to be carefully considered before jumping into. 

To talk to us about our school lettings process and how to become part of our directory, please contact us. 

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