Welcome to the Easter (April) 2000 On-Line Edition of

St George's News

Waterlooville's Parish Magazine

OUR CHURCH HALL

The present Church Hall

The Present Church Hall

Several people have been asking recently what is going on with the church hall project.

The PCC commissioned a full survey into the structure of the hall and this turned out to be somewhat depressing. Clearly there is a considerable amount of work to be done to the hall, both to bring it up to the standard of a modern hall, and also to effect repairs to the roofs, walls, windows, interior decor and other structural parts as well as undertake a thorough external paint.

In very rough terms the equation began to look something like this: -

1) Effect repairs only, probably about £75,000.

2) Effect repairs, plus improve Gents toilets and extend at rear to improve entry access etc and to improve front entry area. Probably about £150,000.

3) To pull down and rebuild to a new design on the same site, probably about £350,000.

4) To build on a new site (if this were possible) probably about the same.

The Hall Project Committee were keen to progress option 4, and received strong backing from the Diocese who advised that perhaps the current hall site could be either sold, or leased to a developer to provide the funds for the new hall.

proposed site for the New Hall

Proposed site for the New Hall

Whilst this seemed to be a splendid idea, it became clear that there were distinct drawbacks. The proposed site for the new full size hall would have to be alongside the church to the south side, and would mean building on sloping land and having to pile down into the graveyard. Whilst it is quite possible to float a foundation on top of a graveyard it becomes a lot more difficult on a sloping surface.

With a bad experience of the sort of costs which can be incurred before any work is undertaken (viz the Church ramp/porch) in their minds the PCC temporarily shelved the whole idea.

However the problem has not gone away and there are still decisions to be made. Some other options have come to light and the Project Committee will meet again soon to discuss these. We could for instance franchise the hall to a third party for them to run the hall with a fixed regular payment to ourselves; this would remove the letting and interior upkeep responsibility from us, although we would have to make sound the outside of the hall and we would continue to be responsible for the exterior upkeep. The Franchisee would become responsible for the interior and all lettings. Theoretically it would be possible for us to write in any amount of clauses into such a lease (such as use after church on Sundays, special rates for other Church use, fêtes, bazaars etc.) but any restrictions would decrease the annual rent we would receive.

Another idea would be to build a smaller "church use only " hall on the North side of the church, providing a small hall, a meeting room, church "office", photocopier room, kitchen and toilets in an area alongside the current choir vestry entrance with an opening directly into the church where the three full length windows currently are. This option would cost around a quarter of a million and would undoubtedly mean the selling of the current hall footprint site for development.

We are always interested to know of any views you might have regarding these matters as, unfortunately the bullet must be bitten soon, and with very little in reserves any plan must have at least 75% of its value "in the pot" before it can proceed. Grants may be available but generally any grant would have to be matched by our own input.

The current hall project committee consists of Fr Malcolm, Andrew Clark, Jim Dunster, Eric Dinneen, Winifred Mancz, David Palmer, John Symonds, Linda Wainwright, Anne Willoughby, Colin Monk and Tony Rice-Oxley any of whom would be delighted to hear your views. Similarly you could express your views to any of the PCC.

Tony Rice-Oxley

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page last updated 1 APRIL 2000