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.
There are lots of other things we want to do, particularly to support those in greatest need, who are often forgotten the Borough Council because of the relative affluence of our village. We would love to offer workshops to help people with:
- Debt advice
- Career help
- I.T. help
- Healthy eating
There will be lots of other ways we can use a new hub at the church to help our community. If you have ideas please do share them with us by filling in the questionnaire above.
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.