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ST. ANDREW'S CHURCH
HALL POLL
St.
Andrew's Church Hall - Poll
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St. Andrew's Church Hall |
| What do you think the site of St. Andrew's Church Hall should be used for??? |
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St. Andrew's Church Hall - Poll Comments
Jacky.
06/08/2008 12:49
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Onlooker,
That remains to be seen. It depends on what the working party from Soham Town Council come up with. & if any money will be made available. Otherwise yes the community facilities audit was a waste of £5,000.
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Onlooker
30/07/2008 09:30
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| So was the community facilities assessment a waste of time and money after all?
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Jacky.
22/07/2008 12:20
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Jimbob,
As far as I'm aware Amber Homes (St Ives) Plc only paid a percentage of the total price they offered for the hall site, they haven't paid all of it yet as it was subject to planning permission being passed, & now planning has been refused.
At the moment the housing market is slowing down maybe Amber Homes thought twice about purchasing the hall site what with the cost of actually buying the site, the Archaeologists, & the open space money they have to pay out, plus the price of houses going down, it wouldn't be financially viable for them!
Or maybe Amber Homes didn't agree with the price they had to contribute towards the public open space that has to be provided off site, & that's why they didn't get the application in within the time limit they were given.
Or, maybe, just maybe, it just wasn't meant to be, & the hall is indeed saved for the community! Yay! I guess we'll just have to wait, & see what 'develops', hopefully it won't be houses.
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Jimbob
22/07/2008 11:49
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| So does that mean the land they brought from the church is now useless to them? Will they be forced into to redesigning the whole area or perhaps its worthwhile them scrapping the houses and building some type of community facility?
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Jacky.
21/07/2008 20:28
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I noticed on ECDC's planning portal that the application by Amber Homes for the demolition, & the building of 13 dwellings have been refused. I guess Amber Homes didn't agree on, or sort out in time, the money they were asked to contribute:
Dear Sir/Madam 21st July 2008
TOWN AND COUNTRY PLANNING ACT 1990
REFUSAL OF FULL MAJOR PLANNING PERMISSION
The Council hereby refuses the following development:
Proposal: Construction of 13 dwellings (9no. houses and 4no. flats) and associated
works following demolition of existing
Location: St Andrews Church Hall High Street Soham Ely Cambridgeshire
Applicant: Amber Homes (St Ives) Plc
The Council hereby refuses full major planning permission for your application reference
08/00378/FUM registered 21.04.2008.
REASONS FOR REFUSAL
1 The proposal to erect 13 dwellings following the demolition of the existing building on the site
is unacceptable. The application does not provide any Public Open Space on the site for the
future occupants of the development, or make any provision for Public Open Space to be
provided off site. There is also clear evidence that additional community facilities are required
within Soham, as set out in the Soham Community Facilities Assessment (April 2008), and the
proposed development would further add to the existing need. The application does not make
any contribution towards meeting the community facility shortfall within Soham. The
application is therefore contrary to policies 105 and 108 in the East Cambridgeshire District
Local Plan 2000.
Dated: 21st July 2008.
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Dear Sir/Madam 21st July 2008
TOWN AND COUNTRY PLANNING ACT 1990
PLANNING (LISTED BUILDING & CONSERVATION AREAS) ACT 1990
REFUSAL OF CONSERVATION AREA CONSENT
The Council hereby refuses conservation area consent for the following development:
Proposal: Demolition of existing hall and construction of 13 dwellings with associated works
Location: St Andrews Church Hall High Street Soham Ely Cambridgeshire
Applicant: Amber Homes (St.Ives) PLC
The Council hereby refuses Conservation Area Consent for your application reference 08/00377/CAC
registered 04.04.2008.
REASONS FOR REFUSAL
1 The demolition of the proposed building on the site is unacceptable as there is not an
acceptable scheme for the replacement of the building, and its demolition without an approved
scheme will have a detrimental impact upon the character of the Conservation Area, and the
setting of the Grade I church opposite. The application is therefore contrary to policies ENV2
and ENV6 of the East of England Plan 2008, and policy 68 of the East Cambridgeshire District
Local Plan 2000.
Dated: 21st July 2008.
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Jacky.
14/07/2008 09:44
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Are the rumours true that Rev. Tim is moving on to another parish? If so I hope they haven't got a Church Hall, cos they might not have one for much longer. ;-)
Stone Reader,
I think they purchased some land near the sewerage works for the Peachy charity after selling off the land where the Almshouses used to stand on Clay Street.
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Link
11/07/2008 13:21
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The link to all these stories is a hall owned by a church which has not been used for years and complaints only raised when it goes up for sale.
Its a shame that those opposed to the sale who have posted directly below cannot accept what has happend with the good grace shown by Julie Webb.
Perhaps those posting directly below should put their own houses in order before judging the whole congregation of St Andrew's
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A Parishioner of Soham
10/07/2008 22:14
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With all these Halls being sold by the various Church's around the Country and nearly all against the wishes of their Parishioners, it must damage the relationships between the Parishioners and the Church, as for Soham Hall being the last asset the Church holds here, what will happen in the future when the Soham Church needs to raise funds for urgent maintenance costs, who will they turn to ?. Will the Soham Parishioners forget past events ?. or will they turn their backs on the Church, only time will tell, it would seem that the congregation in the Church today is getting smaller by the year, certainly only about a quarter of what it was when the Hall was built which was then in the region of 400+.
It would seem that the Church of England is out of touch with the Community as a whole, and has decided that their congregations must come first above everybody else, 100 persons out of a population of 10,000+. So is the Church any more of a Community building than say the Co-op ?.
The Church of England and those representing it seem to me to be giving Christianity some new meanings. TAKE, GREED, PROFIT, and not a lot of GIVE.
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villagers versus church
10/07/2008 14:46
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THE people of Eccleston are taking on the Church of England in a fight to keep their village hall.
Members of St Mary's Church Hall Trust, the keepers of the dilapidated building, have pledged to sell the neglected site to the highest bidder which could bring the church up to £500,000.
But the decision has caused an unholy row between the trust and the group set up to save the building, the Eccleston Village Hall Trust Executive Committee, which has the backing of Chorley Borough Council.
The council has offered £60,000 towards the purchase of the site on Lawrence Lane and £90,000 to help with demolition costs
Despite the offer, the church hall trust wants to sell the land to housing developers and use the cash for church funds.
They have also offered £150,000 to campaigners to be used for a new community centre provided they are given planning permission for housing development so the maximum value of £500,000 can be realised.
But the land is earmarked for community use in the council's local plan, so permission to build houses there is unlikely.
A feasibility study by The Green Centre, Eccleston's environmental action group, found no other suitable sites in the village for a new hall.
The Rev Ian Templeton, chairman of St Mary's Church Hall Trust said the offer from the council was insubstantial.
He said: "The land will be put on the open market and it will go to the highest bidder.
"It is not a case of putting money over the community, we have offered the village hall trust a significant amount of money to go towards a new community centre. And we intend to build a facility at St Mary's Church for the use of the whole community."
The hall, which was built 50 years ago after many villagers donated a brick each, has fallen into severe disrepair over the past three years since the last function on Millennium Eve.
Kerry Welsh, spokeswoman for the village hall trust said: "The church has a moral as well as a legal obligation to ensure that the community that it represents is adequately provided for.
"The church may argue that the hall was uneconomic but the truth is that the hall wasn't maintained adequately and indeed as a result of its closure made a children's nursery playschool homeless, the badminton club had to re-locate and teenage Saturday evening discos could no longer take place."
County and borough councillor, Alan Whittaker, is a member of the EVHT and is also a parishioner of Eccleston St Mary's Church.
He claimed: "I believe the church trust wants to sell the land so they can wash their hands of any planning issues that may arise.
"The land is allocated for community use in the local plan, so it is very unlikely a developer would get planning permission for houses there.
"What Eccleston needs is a village hall for the use of the whole community -- we need new houses like a hole in the head."
Eccleston Primary School has recorded a dramatic drop in intake numbers since a playgroup housed in the community centre folded and headteacher John McCloskey appealed for a new hall to be built.
"Eccleston urgently needs a community centre which would be of value to many groups within the village," he said.
The trust, a registered charity, was formed two years ago to help return the hall to the community. Its website set up a week ago has been inundated with offers of help and messages of support since it opened a week ago.
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church alienates people
10/07/2008 14:36
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A CONTROVERSIAL plan to turn a church hall into a hostel for homeless people was narrowly passed by councillors yesterday.
Hundreds of people had signed petitions objecting to the proposals to convert St George's Hall, in Elmfield Street, into an 11-bedsit facility.
They wanted the hall to become a community centre for local groups.
Darlington Borough Council's planning committee could not agree on the plan, with five members voting in favour and five against.
Committee chairman Councillor Frank Robson used his casting vote to push it through.
Residents said afterwards they were "gutted" at the decision.
Yvonne Richardson is the chairwoman of Northgate Community Partnership, formed earlier this year with the support of the council but which has nowhere to meet.
She said: "There is an awful lot of feeling here and I can't believe they have made that decision."
Earlier, she urged the committee to reject the plan.
"Please, please keep this hall for the purpose for which it was built and for the use of this community," she said.
She added that the partnership and the Friends of North Lodge Park had made numerous attempts to find out how to use the hall, which belongs to the United Reformed Church, for meetings and other events.
"The Bangladeshi community has also tried to get information about the hall," she said.
"They have searched for an alternative for a year now and they haven't come up with anything.
"All these people have had the same reply - that the hall is sold. How do we prove that we have the commitment, the ideas, the need to make use of that hall?"
Northgate ward councillor Eleanor Lister said: "We desperately need St George's Hall to be available for the whole of the community."
The United Reformed Church said there had been no inquiries about the hall's possible use by the community.
Coun Robson said it had not been used since 2001 and there were other buildings available for community use.
The council received 26 letters and two petitions with more than 350 signatures opposing the hostel scheme, which will be run by Darlington charity The 700 Club.
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