KIDLINGTON Girl Guides’ £300,000 bid to build a new hall has been given renewed hope.

Last October the group won £5,000 from Kidlington Tyres and Exhaust’s tyre supplier Kuhmo.

Now, after being given the cash last month, the group are more optimistic about the future.

Its five-year campaign has so far raised £90,000 to replace the 1970s Green Road building, used by 250 girls.

Kidlington Girl Guiding Commissioner Nette Clarke, who oversees 11 groups for ages five to 25, said: “We have been doing this for five or six years now.

“It is going slowly but we are certainly doing our best. This extra money is good news.”

The group has also applied for larger grants from the Warburtons Trust and European Commission.

Tonight they will meet to review the current grant applications and look at where else they could seek cash in 2014.

The group aims to raise £5,000 to £10,000 each year from the Kidlington community, with the rest from grants.

Kidlington Tyres and Exhaust employee Alison Aust nominated the group for the £5,000 Kumho donation because her daughter Jessica, nine, goes to Guides.

She said: “I was made aware they were rebuilding and needed the money.

“The Guides is brilliant for Jessica. They do crafts, they have been to the Oxford Ice Rink and they have sleepovers.

“But they certainly couldn’t have one at the hall at the moment, it is quite cold there.

“It would be lovely if they could have a new place because they do all sorts there – discos, parties.

“It is a great place, it just needs re-doing.”

The group has raised money with Christmas raffles, summer fetes, supermarket bag packing and donations from groups like Woodstock Rotary Club.

In 2011 a leaflet drop in the village raised £5,000 and a sponsored climb in the Pyrenees also helped.

County bands SupaFunk4 and The Rock Doctors were among those who raised £172.46 for the cause with a show at the village’s Highwayman pub in August.

The Guides’ building currently has a hall, a small room and a kitchen and its replacement will have a hall, two or three meeting rooms and a larger kitchen.

  • For information about the appeal people are asked to visit girlguidingkidlington.org.uk