Thursday 8th February, 2024
Holy Trinity Church in the city centre is on the agenda for the Colchester City Council Planning Committee when it next meets at the Town Hall on 15th February.
Don’t worry – the bulldozers aren’t being sent in to demolish an 11th Century Listed building.
Instead we’re talking about the Town Deal funding. The Council wants to spend £1.8m of this central government handout to help transform the Church into a Community Hub.
Everything seems to be a hub these days.
The proposals are to open up the old building to become One Colchester Community Hub. The plan is for this space to then be managed by Community360, a charity that has hit the headlines itself recently.
The Officer recommendation is for approval. Green Cllr Mark Goacher of Castle ward has called in the application for the Committee to look at in more detail.
His objections include:
“Significant concerns raised by residents about the applications to open up the graveyard to the public and move headstones. Concerns that this alters the settings of a heritage building and could lead to increased anti-social behaviour around one of Colchester’s oldest buildings: littering and urination in particular.
The opening up of the church door and its location could lead to it becoming a stopping off point for users of the night time economy to relieve themselves.
The moving of gravestones amounts to a change in the setting of the building and raises ethical concerns about the encouraging of the public to eat, drink and throw litter onto people’s graves.
Concerns that this shows a casual disrespect and that this lowers to cultural tone of the area. Also significant concerns about the loss of wild flora and fauna to a planned and manicured garden.”
In response, the Officer response claims:
“It is considered that the proposal has achieved an appropriate balance between protecting the character and fabric of the Church and protecting features within the churchyard and on the boundary whilst enhancing the public realm and increasing public accessibility to the site.”
Historic England is broadly supportive:
“Having considered the documentation submitted with the application, including the ‘Heritage, Design and Access Statement’ produced by Hat Projects, we are supportive of the proposals in their revised form.”
The Colchester Civic Society less so:
“This is an ancient graveyard ,hallowed ground for those who lived nearby and worshiped at the church and yet we wish to transform it into an extension of Lion Walk’s social use.
We are now concerned for the residents of the Square and nearby who will learn to appreciate the current graveyard for what it is rather than the probable magnet for unsavoury behaviour.”
Ouch.
Nine other letters of objection have been submitted ahead of the meeting.
Holy Trinity was last used as a place of worship in 1954. Its most recent use was as a community cafe up until 2017.
The Chronic has a Patreon page over here if you want to support my work.