Link for video walk-through of the approach - digital model walk-through
In 2022, prompted by tripling energy costs and increasingly significant building issues, including the need for a new entrance area with disabled toilet access, we began to develop the regen100 project. This recognises the existing problems of our buildings and within our 100th year in 2023 we sought to develop an approach that could give to the congregation a secure and sustainable building for the future ministry of the church. Initial feasibility studies were undertaken including a material and structural survey. When that survey reported back in April 2024, the extent of the issues across our buildings became clear.
At that point we paused the project and met as a church in prayer across May & June 2024, seeking guidance from God for the next steps. Out of this time a two-stage proposal arose.
Stage 1 would demolish the two newer parts of our buildings – the 1950s Gateway building adjoining the church, and the 1973 Jubilee extension of the church, replacing these with a modular, pre-fabricated build that would provide similar spaces giving accommodation to our well developed community hub.
This could be achieved within a much shorter timeframe, with less disruption, and at a significantly less cost than the earlier direction, while giving the opportunity to develop a longer-term (Stage 2) project to repair and upgrade the older parts, the Sanctuary & café/hall spaces, across a possible 10 year period.
We are now in the process of making decisions around the Stage 1 proposal. This has the strange name of the ‘Rehobothy Project’. Across the summer we spent time with some of the wells in the bible. One of those was at Rehoboth, in Genesis 26, meaning ‘the Lord has given us a space to flourish’. With a long-term attraction to the language of bothies in Scotland, where walking the hills is a characteristic of the church, and where it also became a way to think about our life together across the pandemic, the term ‘rehobothy’ was instantly shared amongst us as a way to reflect on the direction of stage 1 within our regen100 project. This is a working name for us for this stage of the work as a creative, exploratory, opening outwards of the church towards what could be – a place to find shelter, when needed, but also where the Lord gives us space to flourish.
