Green light for church rebuild that will be fit for the ‘big occasions’

A CHURCH building will undergo a major refurbishment after it was granted planning permission.

Chiltern Evangelical Church in Grove Road will be demolished and replaced with a larger building to cater for larger events.

Church elder Joe King hopes the changes will serve the church for the next 100 years.

He said that the single-story chapel was no longer “fit for purpose” or “salvageable”.

Mr King said: “What we plan to do is essentially demolish everything and build a new building with a portico around it and put car parking on site, which we don’t have at the moment.

“The plan is to build a new big hall in the middle of the site, with a kitchen space and a toilet and a private room for nursing mothers to the side of the entrance which will be on the side on Grove Road.

“To have a good-sized hall as well will be to the benefit of the community and we’re going to get a lift so we can get people in from the car park into the building, because at the moment there is parking on the pavement.

“There will be a veranda all the way around on the sides with Delphi columns on three of the sides.

“It will really give us something for the next 100 years, which is, I think, really good.”

Grass and solar panels will also be added to the roof to make up for lost green space from the new building’s increased footprint.

He said that the building is currently used for church services on a Sunday but that he believes the new building will be able to accommodate more people in the future.

He said the church also hopes to expand it’s offering for public events once it can offer a more suitably sized space.

Mr King said: “We currently run a few public events through the week, at the moment there is a mothers and toddlers group, as well as two youth clubs that only fit about 25 kids each, so when we have a bigger hall we will certainly be able to get rid of the waiting list on that.

“We’re looking at other community uses as well, that we’d like to see, which for a variety of reasons we can’t do yet.

“We currently can’t do any big occasions around here, or any that require catering because the kitchen isn’t up to scratch.

“Also, at the moment for things like carol services we tend to hire a village hall to allow more visitors to attend but we look forward to being able to host these in the future.”

Mr King said that the next step towards the development would be completing a more detailed design before going to tender.

While a crowdfunding effort within the church community has already raised £???????, the church will look to apply for grants and loans once a design has been finalised.

Mr King said: “We’ve raised about two-thirds of the funding and the logical next step on a project like this is get the details of the design finalised before we go to tender.

“After that we will go to site preparation and the construction company will mobilise their team.

“We hope to run a tender process towards the end of this year with the view to start construction in 2026. We were delighted to get the consent because it’s an important project.

“I think it is very visible in terms of the village so having a design which the planners and neighbours are happy with is extremely significant and I think the fact we are able to go through the components of the application and come through with consent is a great endorsements of a good design.

“We’re now actively looking at the costings and funds necessary to start the project  and hope in the next month or two we will be in a position to assess the finances carefully to move on to the next stage.

“In a project like this you end up with an overall budget which is in the order of £1m and we’ve been looking at raising that money.

“There are organisations which make grants and loans from charities to church projects like building projects and we have been in contact with one or two who would seem to be able to get involved in a project like this.

“We’re looking at the next generation of the church because there has been a church there for nearly 100 years and it’s tired and worn out in terms of the building so we’re now able to rework that for the future generation.”