Church’s play area and community café plan to breath life into town shop?

A former town centre department store could become a soft play, café and community centre if an application by a Spalding church is approved.

Converting Coney’s three-storey building to include a play area, foodbank and an area for worship, would see an unused building brought back to life.
The Lighthouse Church wants to move into the building and offer a range of community services. It has applied to South Holland District Council for change of use.
“The Lighthouse Church believes this new venture will provide the town with a unique coffee shop and that also provides soft play facilities for children when they and their families come into town,” says a statement from the church.
An application has been submitted to South Holland District Council outlining the proposal.
Coney’s closed its town centre store in May of this year and the building has been empty since.
“This is an exciting development aimed at encouraging wider use of the town which, alongside this currently vacant building, also has several other empty premises. The Lighthouse Church believes this new venture will provide the town with a unique coffee shop that also provides soft play facilities,” said the statement.
The church is expanding and has a 300-strong congregation, its Haverfield Road premises, which it owns outright.
The Agape Foodbank will also move to the new site and will operate from the rear of the building.
“We are so excited by the prospect of this move. We want to give back to the community by providing things that don’t currently exist in the town centre, and give people more reasons to visit the Market Place which suffers from having so many empty buildings,” said senior Partner David Sandhu.
The ground floor of the building would also have a cafe with an after-school youth area to the rear. The foodbank will have a dedicated access, also to the rear.
“The cost of living crisis has seen an increase in demand in food bank services,” says a document accompanying the application.
Debt support services will also be available at the centre which will also offer senior citizen groups and mother and baby clubs.
There are also proposals to operate a Christian bookstore on the first floor, which will also house a place of worship. The third floor will be used as an office and a smaller function room.
A business case submitted to South Holland District Council says the church aims to ‘find purpose, make a difference,’ and the new building, which it would buy from Coney’s, would offer something for the wider community.
It would also create more paid positions to work with its current pool of volunteers.