Without a doubt the church and hall have served us well but the recent reordering of All Saints’ has shown how much more potential our buildings can have. The hall has become increasingly difficult to maintain and increasingly inadequate for the size and scope of the activities held on site throughout the week. Modern legislation and expected standards have changed. There are issues of health and safety, disability access and environmental targets that were not considered when the hall was built. We have a growing children’s work but the provisions of the Children’s Act set limits on the numbers of children that can be accommodated in certain sized rooms. In recent years our Sunday children’s work has only been able to continue with the kind loan of rooms in Avon House and through the addition of a portacabin. No building nowadays would be constructed without easy access to toilets or kitchen facilities yet for those attending activities in church these facilities are in a different building across a busy car park. Pedestrians and car traffic share the same entry and exit points in a manner that is unsafe. When people come onto the site during the week there is nowhere to welcome them and nowhere for them to wait. The offices are increasingly inadequate for the number of staff that we have and the level of administration required in a busy church.
These are just some of the issues that will be addressed by this project. The church family has been talking about this for at least 50 years and the need for change has only grown during that time. We believe that it has fallen to this generation to face the challenge and build for the future.
Atrium, Welcome Area and Balcony Resource Area