Kington Langley’s Village hall to show the way (From This Is Wiltshire)

Kington Langley’s village hall has become the first in the UK to link its door opening to the bookings calendar.

Members of the village hall committee have recently introduced electronic access control for its hire facilities, and project manager Peter Giles said they struck upon the idea of linking the system up with the calendar.

Currently, around 25 groups regularly use the hall, with many more using it for occasions such as parties.

Mr Giles said: “I have to say, until everyone gets used to it, it is making my life more difficult, but it’s making life a lot easier for key holders.

“I was in the Royal Air Force until I retired ten years ago, and it’s not a new idea – we used in at Abbey Wood [the largest Ministry of Defence site in the UK] some years ago.

“However, as far as we know, we are the very first to use this technology for access to a village hall.”

The system, designed and installed by Total Fire & Security Ltd of Castle Combe, takes data from the Halls for Hire Booking System supplied to the hall two years ago by Avalon Software, processes it and loads the details into a Paxton Access entry control system.

Individual door controllers hold access information for a seven-day period and this is updated automatically in the early hours every morning.

Users are provided with a smart keycard which unlocks the doors provided the time of presentation matches the period booked.

Mr Giles said: “That’s the trick – people can unlock the door 15 minutes before the start of their booking, but if they try to open the doors 15 minutes and 30 seconds before, the doors won’t open.

“But it will have a big impact for all of our users, and it’s a pretty wonderful bit of kit.”

Before the new system was installed, volunteer key-holders had to be available with the correct keys for users.

The hall now has more than 1,000 bookings a year, and Mr Giles said he hoped the system would make the use of the hall easier for everyone.