Grimsby St James Church - Community Centre
Grimsby St James Church - Community Centre
WREN awarded: £25,000 towards the construction of a new community centre at St James Church, Grimsby, North East Lincolnshire.
St James Church is Grimsby's civic church and is in a prominent town centre shopping area. Although it offers a fine worship, arts and heritage building, despite failings it did not offer space that is suitable for community use. Following extensive consultation with the local community plans were created to build a community centre attached to this Grade 1 listed church.
Following extensive works an existing tired, run down area comprising the vestry rooms, barely functional toilet and sink plus circulation space has been transformed and extended into a new Community Centre. It has its own discrete entrance and can function independently of the church. It has a "rear" entrance directly into the church building. The new development is 153 m2 plus external landscaping and entrance areas. Of this, 88 m2 has been the refurbishment of a part of the Grade 1 listed building and 65 m2 a modern extension built to the exact quality that the heritage importance of the building demands.
The main functional elements of accommodation comprise of:
- Community hall of 50 m2 which will be used for a wide range of activities and which has already attracted initial bookings from many users from within the community
- Small gallery of 8 m
- Multi-purpose room of 23 m2 which will combine the functions of the vestry with use as an overflow community space
- Small kitchen of 6 m2
- Toilets with full accessibility
- Remaining circulation and extra space which will enable a small community information point to be developed.
The result of the new development is a multi-purpose community space. The community use will have a range of projects ranging from traditional community hall users to heavy use as an advice and resource centre for the most disadvantaged people in the local area.
