A Rugby church has received £10,000 from the Big Lottery to run language classes and to help them make big plans with local people about the future of the building and how it can serve the area.
St Peter and St John Church, Clifton Road, known locally as PJ’s, serves the Eastlands and Southfields area of Rugby, just east of the town centre. The area doesn’t have a community centre and the church wants to work with local residents and other organisations to make its building more user-friendly as a place for the community. It also wants to help with some essential services that may be needed in the area. To start with, they will put on language classes for New Arrivals from Eastern Europe and further afield and will be fundraising for a new toilet block. In the long term, they hope to re-open the front entrance that was blocked up in 1984 after a fire.
St Peter & St John vicar, Rev Sheila Bridge said, “We are a small congregation with a large building. We’ve been talking for a long time about how the building can be altered to be more use to our community. We’ve even had some plans drawn up and given it a name – Project Welcome. But, until now, we haven’t had the money to make it happen. We’re so excited about the Lottery grant because it means we can employ someone to work with us on a feasibility study and funding plan. This is not just about the church. It’s about creating a place for our whole community, so it’s really important that everyone has a say in what this should be.”
Andy Duncan, from regeneration consultancy AJD Regeneration, who are leading the work said, “Over the next 6 months we’ll be talking to as many people as possible to find out about the needs of the area and getting to know people. We will be asking lots of questions. We’ll bring it all together in a community event in late summer, then start preparing plans and grant applications.”
Anyone wanting to know more can email Rev Sheila Bridge at sheila@peterjohnchurch.org.uk or get in touch via the Peter John Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/peterjohnchurch
Footnote
After the fire that destroyed the church hall, the original main door of the church was blocked up in 1984 when the church was internally re-ordered to create an integral church hall at one end of the building. Behind the bricked up door, the porch area was used for a toilet block. Sheila Bridge says ‘at the time, this must have seemed like the best solution and decisions had to be made quickly following the sudden loss of our old church hall through a fire. The rest of the interior was reordered very effectively, but so many people report that they can’t find their way in or that they thought we were closed’.
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