Building project update

On Sunday 10th December Jon Shallow, Church Warden, gave the below update about the building project:

Here at St Peter’s we have a vision to demonstrate the love of Jesus by being a source of spiritual hope practical help and authentic community. Our buildings play a vital role in enabling us to deliver the vision God has given us. Our building project makes a priority of ensuring our site can be used as effectively as possible to allow our ministries to grow in the coming years.

On behalf of the Building Sub-Committee, I want to give you an update on what is happening with the Building Project – Kitchen updates, Toilet refurbishment etc. in the Halls, and new toilets accessible from the church.

The initial contractor bids for the Building Project considerably exceeded the cash funds we had available.  We had an all Church meeting in July to discuss this and were given a feedback questionnaire.

Thank you to those who responded to the questionnaire – the feedback has been most helpful and has helped our thinking as to how to move forward.

We now plan for the Kitchen to be extended towards the large hall using the current light well space, rather than extending the kitchen into the back corridor.  The 3 toilets will continue to be refurbished, as well as storage space created in the large hall, and a new set of dividing doors installed.

We no longer plan to put an additional disabled toilet in the halls in the boiler cupboard – doing this complicated many things and added additional costs over and above that of just a toilet.

A suggestion from the questionnaire was to have a new disabled toilet attached to the church, accessible from within the Church. The diocese  are happy with this in principal, but want to see drawings etc. before giving approval.  There are many benefits to having toilets here.

This toilet would be where the Grundon bins currently are – behind the wooden fence to the right of the entrance to the church (car park side).  Imagine just before you exit the church through the left hand doors, you turn left, through what is now a large poster by the welcome desk, through the glass wall, which will become a door into a small corridor, at the end of which is the disabled toilet. On the left of this corridor will be a separate single toilet.

There will be 2 toilets accessible from the Church.  There will be no new toilets in the halls.

The architects have been instructed to revise the halls plans and create new plans for these new church toilets. We asked a local contractor to come up with sensible ball-park figures for the revised works – even when adding on a very healthy contingency we are still within the cash available or pledged for this work.

It is anticipated that works on the Halls could start in April, and the Church - attached toilets in July.

Thanks to those who have pledged specifically towards this work.  The money can be given to us at any time up to the start of the works when we need to start paying bills.

If you have any questions or concerns about the project, please have a chat with any member of the sub-committee who will be delighted to discuss the project in more detail.  The members are Geraldine Shiels, Sue Smithies, Richard Smithies, Nicola Rayner, Danny and myself.