ALMOST £1million is set to be spent on ‘essential’ work to revamp a Malvern church.
Malvern Evangelical Church will be flattened to make way for a new, purpose-built site which will include a meeting hall for services, a secondary hall for clubs and rooms to house the Sunday school.
The building, which has been situated on Pickersleigh Road for about 40 years, will undergo the £700,000 revamp, with another £200,000 expected to be spent in preparation, design fees, investigation work and equipment to furnish it.
Funds for the project, which has been planned for about three years, have been raised by donations from members of the church’s congregation and the mortgaging of the church.
Peter Mortimore, a member of the congregation and who used to be on the leadership team, said the work was great news for the ‘Blue Church’.
“The idea of rebuilding is to refresh the structure because it is pretty rotten in places,” he said. “It is also to provide enough space so we can facilitate other activities.
“The work is essential. We could not have carried on at that site, we would have had to sell the site and go elsewhere or do what we are doing now because the buildings have reached the end of their life.
“We could not have continued to operate in the way we are doing now without this work.”
The scheme, which is expected to be completed by December, will see the creation of a similar structure, but with an extension to the front of the building, which will include a seated hall.
“We felt very much in the right location,” Mr Mortimore added. “We have been in this location over 40 years and we have had a lot to do with running kids clubs with kids in the area.
“It is quite a needy area and there isn’t really another church near so we made the decision to stay where we are because we felt that was the right call to rebuild on the site.”
