A former church in Bowcombe on the outskirts of Carisbrooke will become a house.
Submitted by the Isle of Wight Methodist Church Circuit, Bowcombe Methodist Church, on Bowcombe Road, will become a 4-bedroom affordable house. The Isle of Wight Council has approved planning permission for the conversion.
The church ceased services in June last year.
The main alteration to the building internally will be a mezzanine level added, with the current church windows looking out across the Bowcombe Valley providing the main living space.
A planning statement prepared for the application said:
“Uppermost in the design concept was the desire to retain the existing building’s original identity — one of a simple and unadorned place of worship built to serve the religious needs of the local farming community — while providing an attractive, functional, accessible and adaptable residential environment for the prospective occupants.
“It cannot be denied that working within constraints presented an architectural challenge. However, the Church trustees are confident the design submitted has achieved the brief of retaining the existing character of the building and making best use of the available space.”
Permission was granted for the conversion, and demolition of a toilet block, earlier this month, but is subject to 11 conditions, including building a bat box for the Pipistrelle bats who roost in the church and allowing archaeologists access any time to record any features of archaeological significance found during the works as it is close to the Clatterford Roman Villa.
A beautiful area, and understandable but sad to see such places being turned into housing, but the joke is ‘an affordable home’, affordable for ‘whom’ exactly?
Still better than turned into a Mosque I guess.
Archaeologists will be visiting around tea time then! the new residents are going to be visited by every nut job on the Island and no dought nut- jobs from the mainland.
Why would anyone want a home that any Tom Dick or Harry can roam around your home whenever thay want?.
Hope the new owners don’t sunbathe nude…
Just read the article again and realized visits will be during the works, fuuuw that was close…
Just throw in the word ‘affordable’ bound to con someone.
Speaking of churches – we don’t see these organisations sending money to the NHS in these strange times we are currently living in.
The Church of England for example is worth £8.2bn – and they don’t pay tax either!
http://camdennewjournal.com/article/the-church-of-england-should-look-at-use-of-its-wealth
Hypocrites – oh yes!
There’s no way this will be “affordable”. Another community place gone too.