Do Sabs Hate Community Spaces?

Bridestowe Village Hall in Devon with stunning views of Dartmoor, serves as a local community hub.

In yet another display of activism masquerading as rural advocacy, the Plymouth and West Devon Hunt Saboteurs have launched a campaign against Bridestowe Village Hall for committing the apparently heinous crime of... functioning as a village hall.

Their target? A fundraising lunch for the Spooners & West Dartmoor Hunt this Sunday. Their demand? That the hall cancels a legitimate booking, forgo £400-500 (the cost to rent the entire venue for a day) in much-needed revenue, and bow to pressure from people who demonstrably neither understand nor represent rural communities.

Bridestowe Village Hall, like hundreds of similar venues across Britain's countryside, operates on tight margins. These community hubs depend on diverse bookings to keep their doors open; weddings, dance workshops, children's parties, and yes, hunt fundraisers. Each booking contributes to heating bills, maintenance costs, and the continued existence of a vital community resource.

The financial pressure on village halls is real. Rising energy prices have become an existential threat, with some halls now spending a third or more of their entire income simply on energy bills. Following the COVID-19 pandemic, many experienced total losses of letting income, and their finances remain weakened as revenue levels struggle to recover. Meanwhile, recruiting volunteers to manage these community assets has become increasingly difficult, leaving small committees stretched thin and desperate for every booking they can secure.

The saboteurs' social media post drips with condescension, lecturing a village hall committee about what is "appropriate" for their own community space. Notably absent from their righteous indignation is any offer to compensate the hall for the lost revenue their campaign aims to create. Will they be writing a cheque for £500? Will they be booking the venue for their own "sab lunch" to make up the shortfall? Of course not. It's easy to demand others sacrifice when you're risking nothing yourself.

A patronising Facebook post where sabs lecture rural communities on what's "appropriate" for their own spaces, proving once again they neither understand nor represent the people who actually live there.

The hunt saboteurs' fundamental disconnect from rural life couldn't be more apparent. Sabs have a track record of trying to ruin rural businesses as exposed by BTM. Back in 2024, the League Against Cruel Sports (LACS)  embarked on a malicious campaign against much-loved country pubs who hosted hunt events.

Sabs have a track record of trying to ruin local businesses across the country.

Agricultural workers, small business owners, and families with generations of local roots participate in and support the tradition of trail hunting. To dismiss this as merely "providing cover for illegal hunts" is to caricature an entire way of life through a lens of prejudice.

If the hunt saboteurs truly cared about rural communities, they might start by respecting the autonomy of those communities to make their own decisions and by offering solutions rather than simply demanding cancellations that hurt local institutions.