Blayney Shire Mayor Bruce Kingham said that the council chose to allocate $20,000 to each hall in the shire to bring them up to the required standards of public entertainment.

“Council has to police those standards and it would have been a very unpopular decision to close the halls,” he said

“We couldn’t have budgeted the $20,000 for each hall out of our budget without putting up rates.”

Cr Kingham said that some of the committees and trusts of the halls also put extra money in to do extra work over the $20,000 allocation from the government.

Federal Member for Calare John Cobb said that country halls are “the centre of the community” in small towns.

“Small communities die if schools and halls close,” he said.

“You’ve got to have a hall as a point of contact.”

Hon Cobb congratulated the council on “choosing things that help the community”.

“When you’re from a small community you always very aware of where you are from,” he said.

“It's wonderful to keep small communities going.”

Cr Kingham said that one of the requirements of the $289,000 funding that council received in November 2008 was that the shire’s federal member had to launch the projects.

“We chose Tallwood Hall for the launch as it’s a typical community hall in this shire,” he said.