A FUNDRAISING evening to support the restoration of one of the county's finest buildings has been cancelled because no-one could be bothered to attend.

By Richard Smith

A FUNDRAISING evening to support the restoration of one of the county's finest buildings has been cancelled because no-one could be bothered to attend.

Woodbridge Town Council is furious after efforts to put on an event to raise money for the Shire Hall were scuppered by apathetic businesses and shopkeepers.

The event was due to be held on October 19 - but it has been given the cold-shoulder by people in the town and there was not one single positive reply to invitations sent out by Chris Walker, the town clerk.

The town council has spent about £250,000 on restoring the building, used as the council's headquarters and as a horse museum. Weddings are also held in the Grade I listed building.

The council took £100,000 from its reserves and borrowed a £150,000 loan over 10 years from the Public Works Loan Board. The council has to pay almost £18,900 a year for the loan and it is budgeting to raise £5,000 a year through fundraising.

If the £5,000 is not raised then the council will have to consider increasing the local council tax precept to meet the shortfall.

One fundraising initiative has been to ask the public to buy bricks engraved with their chosen inscription and lay them in front of the Shire Hall in what is known as the Seckford Square.

The price of the brick is £35 or £45, a double brick is £70 or £90 and companies can buy corporate bricks at a cost of £500. The fundraising evening was designed to swell the number of corporate bricks.

But Les Binns, a member of the fundraising committee, told the town council: ''The town clerk sent out 50 invitations to an evening at which we were hoping they would buy a corporate stone for the benefit of the restoration of the Shire Hall.

''We had seven replies in the negative and no other replies have been received. I think it is a damn disgrace that those people do not make any attempt to support this council and yet they are quite quick enjoy to judge us when we do something wrong.''

Another fundraising initiative has been a damp squib. The council launched the Great Weather Lottery, a daily lottery run by a company which encourages people to pay 20p a day with the opportunity of winning prizes worth up to thousands of pounds.

The lottery was launched nearly a year ago but after a few months only three people had signed up during a trial run in the Kyson ward.