Readers' forum : The village hall

I am a trustee for a village hall and we are about to undertake a major refurbishment of the premises. It is estimated that the work will cost about £100 000 and we hope to obtain grants from various bodies to help in paying for this.

My question is whether we can register for VAT and reclaim the input tax on the cost of the building works.

I realise that if we register the downside is that we would have to charge output tax on the hall hire. However as we will be offering a much better hall we believe that we should be able to increase our fees by more than 20%. That said our annual turnover is unlikely to exceed about £20 000 a year.

If we register and reclaim the input VAT I would imagine that registration will seem a pointless exercise...