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The Reverend Jonathan Rust: ‘all we want to do is stay here in Holloway’ |
Church ‘treated like developer for trying to help community’
Vicar’s ‘enormous disappointment’ as refurbishment bid fails to win planners’ blessing
A VICAR has expressed bewilderment at the rejection of plans for a community centre in a deprived part of Holloway.
An anticipated £3.5million of funding for the project was to come from a seven-storey block of luxury flats built by developer Thornsett Properties on the site of the 1950s St David’s Church hall in Lough Road, opposite Paradise Park.
Funds from the sale of land for the homes were to go towards refurbishing Victorian St David’s Church, behind the church hall, with the community centre being created in the church’s basement. But councillors ruled that more of the planned homes should be affordable.
The Reverend Jonathan Rust said his church wanted to create a “purpose-designed, high-quality community space” that would “make Holloway proud”.
He called the committee’s decision “an enormous disappointment”. “We’ve been treated as people just out to make money so we can retire to the Bahamas, as a commercial developer might, when all we want to do is stay here in St David’s, Holloway, where we have always been, and help our community,” he added.
“The proposals have been in the pipeline for four-and-a-half years. I cannot understand the logic of planning committee members who voted against a proposal their own planning officers could not have been more clear about their support for.”
The church had identified seven potential partners, including organisations which help prevent ex-prisoners from re-offending, a nursing service and Prospex, a group working with teenagers.
The St David’s congregation began worshipping at nearby St Mary Magdalene Church a year ago in anticipation of the plans being approved. But last month councillors on the six-member, Labour-controlled west area planning committee voted four to one against the proposal, with the remaining councillor abstaining.
Labour councillor Paul Convery, who chairs the committee, said all new developments of ten units and above should have 50 per cent affordable housing. He added: “I support having a community centre but I don’t think the best way to finance that is to build a seven-storey block of three dozen luxury flats with a token two that are affordable.”
Councillor Emily Fieran-Reed, the only Liberal Democrat member of the planning committee, who backed the proposals, said: “In this case, the need for a community centre outweighed the need for affordable housing. There is a real need in this area for a centre where the community can come together.”
Mr Rust said the church would try to come up with a compromise plan. |
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