Building a hub for the community in the heart of the church
West Clandon Church has not been significantly altered for almost 150 years and its facilities have not kept up with the times. We are planning to build a small annexe and do some other work to bring its facilities up to date. This will provide proper WC’s, a kitchenette, better accessibility and a flexible meeting space as well as updating the church’s facilities generally. We want to create a much-needed community hub and want to make more use of the Church for the whole community.
If you have a question about the annexe, please feel free to contact us by emailing hugh.shanks@rocketmail.com or take a look at the frequently asked questions section below.
You can see copies of the plans in Church and on the Guildford Borough Council planning portal (under reference 23/P/00931) or click the link below.
We have taken great care to plan an annex which will be practically invisible from the main road through West Clandon, meaning that the street scene around the Church will not be altered. We have also worked hard with out architects to ensure that, while the annexe will clearly be a new addition to the church, it will use the same, traditional building materials as the church, so that the annexe complements the existing building.
Why not take a look at some of the plans in the section above to get an idea of what the annexe will look like.
Please do get in touch by emailing hugh.shanks@rocketmail.com if you have any further questions.
The Annexe will cost around £650,000. There will also be significant costs as we seek to repair, restore and update the church itself to leave it in good repair for many years to come.
We are making good progress with fundraising. Take a look below to see how much we have raised
The Church already runs a number of community activities. We have a weekly parent and baby/toddler group, a youth group, a community cafe and hearing aid clinic. We have an incredible team of volunteers who love our village and work hard on these projects. Unfortunately our beautiful Church doesn’t have the facilities necessary for these activities. We do our best, but to ensure that these great activities have a future we need to improve the facilities at the church.
The new annexe will enable the church to help many more people. Two particular groups who really need more support are the village primary school (parents, children and teachers) and the elderly.
The school does a wonderful job of educating children drawn from our village and others including Ripley and Send, many come from homes which experience poverty in some way. We are building on our partnership with the school to design and run a range of workshops as well as informal drop-in sessions for parents. The annexe is a short walk from the car park where many parents drop off or collect their children and so is ideally located. We will also hold a range of other events aimed at involving villagers who have no direct connection to the school but who want to help. The school contributes so much to overall village life but needs more help to really thrive.
Many of the older residents of the village enjoy the Tuesday Cafe run once a month by the church and other volunteers. Our vision is to offer smaller but much more frequent sessions for older (or younger) people to enjoy refreshments and companionship, which we are sure will be especially popular in the colder, darker months.
There are other groups who have expressed interest in the new facilities that the annexe will bring, including the nearby care home, the bellringers (who believe it will help attract more ringing bands to visit) and local charities who welcome the opportunity to use a warm, safe, intimate space for meetings.
All of these planned activities are in addition to those already hosted in the other two village spaces, the Village Hall and British Legion (both about three quarters of a mile away) both of which are run on a more commercial basis.
We are convinced that the annexe will be the key to further unlocking the goodwill which exists in the village by giving those who have time, knowledge and experience another way to help others and, in so doing , to enhance the sense of community spirit which we are lucky enough to enjoy.
The church is appealing for funds for this project. The purpose of the appeal is to pay for a new church annexe and for refurbishing, repairing and reordering the existing church (including costs already incurred.) If excess funds are raised the excess will held for use for the fabric of the church or for other capital projects. If insufficient funds are raised to complete all the proposed work then the funds will be used to complete as much of the work as sensibly practicable and any balance held for use on the fabric of the church or for other capital projects.