The buildings you see (including the bus shelter) were built in the 1930s. Sadly, due to construction difficulties the ‘old’ church was built with some serious flaws which resulted in its fairly rapid deterioration over subsequent years. To rectify the faults would cost over £3.5 million so in July 2003 the ‘old’ church, as it is now referred to, was declared ‘redundant.’ This paved the way for us to move here, which we did in July 2004.
Present: This building gives us great flexibility to ‘do’ church in a variety of ways. It allows us to be more easily identified as a ‘centre of community’ within the wider community as both church groups and community groups meet in the same building. The ‘old’ church will be converted into residential accommodation thus keeping the architectural symmetry as a landmark for Eastbourne.
Future: The church community here is growing – of course we pray that this growth will become more substantial over coming months and years.
The local community are making use of our facilities and our building project will allow more groups to make use of this space and will ease some of our tightness in booking!
So we have planning permission to build a new main entrance, plan for better carparking, to install a lift to all levels, stairs between the upper and lower halls and to make a self contained mini conference area. We're also hoping to upgrade our main kitchen and refurbish the stage making our venue great for concerts and exhibitions. The following links show part of the architects plans that will help us to utilise our facilities: Side view and aerial view
This summer the refurbishment of the 'upper rooms' has began, along with the stairway between the Main and Lower Hall being built. The stairway will be complete by the beginning of September.
'Project 3' is the project name of the new side entrance and lift which we are hoping to have in place by summer 2011. The entrance will act as the hub for all activities in the Church Centre, from providing a great entrance for weddings to allowing additional meeting and greeting space; from making the building fully accessible to the widder community and giving full access to people and equipment to our upper rooms. Its an exciting time!
Information concerning Project 3 can be found at the bottom of the page.
