The Voice of Spalding and South Holland
A Spalding community group has received a Lottery grant to help bring a former chapel back into community use.
Project St Thomas is an initiative of the Catholic community in South Holland to create a local resource.
The grant, for just over £14,000, will be used to work with local people to identify potential uses for the building and look at the best way of bringing it back to life.
“The local community are at the centre of our church, and we are blessed that we have had this wonderful resource gifted to us. We want to work with everyone within our community to identify what is needed and wanted, and to make sure that the church continues to deliver for local people through Project St Thomas,” said Fr Jim Burke, priest of The Catholic Church of the Immaculate Conception and St Norbert.
The church has bought the nearby former chapel in St Thomas’s Road, which had been unused for some time.
A donation was made towards the project by Peter Borst, who died last year, which meant the chapel could be bought.
“We are really excited that we will be able to properly begin our journey to bring the former chapel into use for the community.
“This is a really exciting project and local people are already sharing with us their thoughts about how the building could be used.
“We can’t wait to hear more from local people. And this is all thanks to the generosity of people who play the National Lottery and to the wonderful grant from the Heritage Fund,” said project manager Lisa Barwell.
The team at Project St Thomas is using some of the money to secure PDG Architects and Sortified, a not-for-profit social enterprise to work with local people to find out what they want from the former chapel.
If anyone would like to be involved, email pstenquiries@stnorberts.org.uk.
