FURTHER PROGRESS

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In our previous edition of the New Church Times, published last September, we noted that the details of a revised loan were awaiting final approval by the Diocesan Trustees. We are pleased to report this approval has been given.

We are able to confirm that agreement has been reached, by all parties, on the formula for the valuation of the Firs site. We are still waiting for the legal representatives to draw up the final agreement with the English Province, incorporating this formula and other outstanding site issues. We have been promised the draft of this agreement so completion should not be far away.

Since September your New Church Committee has met 5 times. Members of the committee have also held joint discussions with the Sisters of the English Province at Ascot, their legal and professional representatives, Havant council planning officers and representatives of the diocese.

As you are all well aware, it has been agreed that we shall retain the use of the present church for 3 years from the date that planning permission is granted for the new site development. We are conscious, however, that we may be faced with providing temporary space to accommodate the children's liturgy and other parish activities during the construction period. It has been agreed, therefore, that any planning application should include the provision of a temporary structure (e.g. a portacabin) to accommodate these. Also, to ensure that no time is lost, the NCC is actively considering the most suitable form of building contract that should be entered into to make certain that the cost of our development (a new church, presbytery and parish centre) does not exceed the budget available.

Other specialist planning reports will need to be revised/prepared in time for the joint planning application for the whole site. We will need to participate in some of these whilst others will be the responsibility of the developers of the remainder of the site. One of these is a transport survey taking account of current planning policies, parking standards local authority proposals etc. This means we will be asking you, in the near future, to complete a survey including questions on your method of travel to church, parking numbers and other directly related issues. 

The needs of the parish are being reviewed in the light of our new funding. We have agreed to complete this exercise by the end of February to enable our architect, Columba Cook, to prepare the necessary drawings to be submitted with a planning application. One decision that has already been taken is that our new church should provide for 350 permanent seats within the worship space with a required overflow space for a further 100.

We will need to ensure that the facilities within the centre, as well as meeting our needs, are of such a design that they will provide the opportunity for letting to the general public thus assisting with generating funds to help with our building costs.

It is heartening to be able to report that, a year after being forced to suspend our plans through a lack of funding, we are back on track. Everybody involved with developing the London Road site is now working closely together and there is a sense of urgency on everybody's part. Please continue to pray for the work of providing a church, parish centre and presbytery for ourselves and future generations of Catholics in the Waterlooville area.   

A MESSAGE FROM THE PARISH FINANCE COMMITTEE

As mentioned above our new church can be funded by a loan from Diocesan funds. We now have to start facing up to the reality that nothing will happen unless we show the necessary commitment to the project by demonstrating that we can pay back the loan. We shall be required, initially, to repay £1m over a period of 20 years. We shall shortly be seeing a report on our parish accounts for the last year which will show that we are currently just providing the income needed to run the parish. We are adding nothing to the pot for the new church.

We are, -every one of us- going to have to ask questions of ourselves, bearing in mind that the church that we use now will no longer be available to us in about three years time.