Martyn's Law for village halls
A private hire you did not organise can still put you in scope.
The Home Office counts about 800 village halls in standard tier, but the figure understates it: halls sit inside every other category too, and almost all of them are run by volunteers with another job.
Worked example
What the count actually looks like.
Everyone present at the same moment, on your busiest realistic day. Not an average, and not just the people who paid.
A village hall let for a wedding reception
- Guests
- 190
- Caterers and bar staff brought by the hirer
- 11
- Band and sound engineer
- 5
- Committee member on duty
- 1
- Present at once
- Standard tier207
207 present at once, and the committee organised none of it. The hirer's staff count towards your number because they are in your building.
What catches people out
The parts specific to your sector.
Your hirers' staff are your headcount
Caterers, bar staff, a band, a bouncy castle operator. If they are in the building at the same time as the guests, they are in the count.
Responsibility follows control, not the booking
Where a hall is hired out, who the responsible person is depends on who controls the premises at the time. If more than one body has a role, the Act expects you to coordinate. Agree it in writing before you need it.
Nobody on the committee signed up for this
Treasurers and bookings secretaries turn over regularly, and the person who understood the procedures is often the person who just stepped down. That is the real risk, more than the drafting.
You may well be under 200 and fine
Plenty of halls genuinely never reach 200. Check honestly, write down the figure and the basis, and get on with your year.
If you look after several
One report, not one exercise per site.
County village hall associations and parish councils sit above hundreds of committees. One report tells them which halls are in scope and which are not, which is usually the first thing a trustee body needs to know.
Home Office impact assessment: about 809 premises in this sector are expected to fall into standard tier.
See how portfolios workFind out where you stand in about a minute.
Six questions, a cited answer, and a result you can print and take to your committee. Plenty of places run it and find they are not in scope at all.