The St Alban's Project

This page was last updated on Tuesday, February 15, 2005

Background

The Church of St Alban in Swaythling was built in 1933, and so celebrated its 70th birthday in 2003.

In doing so it celebrated 70 years of service to its local community.

In 1997, the extensive and dilapidated Church Halls were sold to a local doctors’ surgery for a very successful conversion, and since then we have been planning and researching the St Alban’s Project.

In November 2001 a Feasibility Study, paid for by the PCC, was undertaken by Simon George, of Simon George Associates, Charity Consultants, of 7 Cremorne Drive, Weeping Cross, Stafford, ST17 0DR, Tel 01785 663600, and that study has been extensively used in the preparation of this Report. We are also grateful to the Social Cohesion Team at Southampton City Council for the supply of deprivation indexes and other information.

We have been successful in our applications to English Heritage for assistance with the essential repairs to the building – they have offered a grant of £206,000. Other grants awarded total £51,000. The total budget for the Project as a whole is around £402,000, of which the PCC currently has £100,000 from the sale of the surgery.

We are left, therefore, with £45,000 of matching funding still to raise, of which we have raised over £37,500 through a local Appeal launched in June 2004. We therefore have over 95% of the funding in place for the Project.