Renewal

Project Background

In 2014 the then PCC agreed that work was required to improve the facilities within the church, this ranged from improvements to the fabric and infrastructure as well as adapting the space to suit a changing community. In the intervening years, several small projects have been undertaken to ensure the buildings continual operation whilst we awaited DAV approval.

The Project is responding to three key principles:

Access – To improve access into and around the building for those  with limited mobility.
Community – To open up parts of the building for use by the wider community, as well as creating a space where our church community can congregate and celebrate.
Time – To ensure the building remains at the heart of the community for many years to come and can be open to wider use outside of weekly services.

Whilst developing the scheme, a team from St Mary’s visited other churches where successful reordering projects had taken place, to learn from their experiences and assess what could be beneficial to our project here in Finedon.
St Mary’s were excited in late 2024 to finally receive approval from Peterborough DAC allowing them to start fundraising and planning for the commencement of works.

The St Mary’s Renewal project seeks to redevelop areas of the present building to open it up to a wider cross section of the local community.

Pew Removal
Our aisles are quite narrow and there are limited places within the building where wheelchair users and those with mobility aids can manoeuvre or experience an event from. In removing a large number of underused pews at the rear of the building and creating a large flat and open area individuals will be able to experience services and events from a slightly elevated area offering better sightlines, whilst having further ramped access to other areas within the building.
The large flat area also offers an opportunity to accommodate a wider variety of community groups, host exhibitions, and ease circulation by the entrance doors after services and events.

Accessible Toilet
Currently whilst we have step free and ramped accessible route into the building, we are unable to offer an accessible toilet provision. By expanding our existing toilet provision to include an additional accessible WC on top of our existing toilet enables us to ensure all those who use the building can do so comfortably.

Relocated Servery
As the new accessible toilet will occupy the location of our present kitchen, a new kitchen and servery area will be created in order to support refreshment provision for services and events. This new servery area will be located to the north side of the flat events space, meaning everything is co-located and self contained.
The new servery area will encourage people into the flat events space, where they will be able to congregate away from primary circulation routes around the building.
The new servery area will be larger than the existing kitchen offering more counter space and integrated appliances, bringing the facilities we can offer up to date.

 

Whilst we already offer a wide range of events throughout the year, from concerts to flower festivals, weekly & monthly groups and of course our church services, we are aiming to see our building in even more regular use throughout the year.
There are a limited number of venues within Finedon which offer facilities for groups to meet, our own St Michael’s Mission Room is booked with a very busy weekly and monthly programme of hirers as well as one off celebrations.

There is an incredible response from first time visitors to our church as they walk through the doors, but many of them find it an unapproachable building because often their only interaction with it is through a service. By opening up the building to more community groups and also enabling us to diversify what events we can offer we aim to have more people through our doors who feel like it is “their space”.