THE church hall in Stanhope’s main street is to be put up for sale in the New Year.
The announcement was made during the church service on Sunday in St Thomas church, Stanhope. For months there has been speculation and debate around the state – and status – of the church hall. A meeting was held in the church earlier in the year with Rev Prince leading the discussions. Rev Prince is no longer in post in the Dale but clearly discussions have been continuing behind the scenes.
At that well-attended meeting, parishioners showed their support for the hall and their displeasure at suggestions it may be sold. A group – Weardale Together CIC founded a separate arm called ‘Save the church hall’ – and this organisation now actively and openly began exploring funding options to purchase the hall for community use.
It appeared as though the Parochial Church Council, made up of parishioners on the parochial electoral register, and which is governing body of the parish churches in the Dale is responsible for promoting the church’s mission and managing its affairs, agreed to aid this group.
At the same meeting held in the church, Rev Prince, helped by the Diocese architect, explained plans to ‘re-order’ the interior of the church, which a show of hands proved was not acceptable to the community. The meeting also heard that the church hall needed some major repairs, which had an estimated cost of £115,000.
Nothing appeared to be happening in relation to the church hall although much was happening to the church itself, including a premature closure, which resulted in the annual Remembrance Sunday service being shortened and held outdoors. It re-opened briefly but is now closed again while the changes to the interior are carried out.
These include the laying of the flagstones, funded with help from the community and overseen by the Friends of St Thomas church, which exists only to help the fabric of the church and is completely separate to the PCC.
The Gazette asked the ‘Save the church hall’ group for its reaction to the news. The reply was shock and despair.
“We were naturally disappointed to hear of this decision as well as the entirely inaccurate statement from the PCC that ‘no progress’ has been made towards securing funding to bring the building into community ownership,’ the statement began. ‘This misrepresentation undermines the hard work of the project group and the support we have received from the community as we’ve been working over the last six months to build a case for investment in the building.
‘As the letter from the PCC was made public in church before it was sent to the project group, an emergency meeting is being held today (30th December) to discuss the situation and a full response will be forthcoming following that meeting.’
A reaction from the Parochial Church Council, which was issued before the church hall group’s statement had said: ‘The PCC was pleased to give the Weardale Together CIC the opportunity to fundraise to buy the church hall for community use. However, at the end of the six month period, there had been no progress towards achieving this goal and a further 12 months was requested. Reluctantly the PCC must comply with its statutory responsibilities and put the hall up for sale. We very much hope the CIC will continue to endeavour to purchase the hall.
The church hall group reacted to that statement saying, ‘The PCC never agreed to give us time – they were forced to because we registered it as a community asset – we asked for more time and preferred bidder status and that is what they have said no to.!
A spokesperson for the PCC continued, “The hall is being sold for the reasons outlined at the public meeting – we cannot afford to keep up repairs, the congregation is too small to manage a church hall that we, as a church, do not use very much, and rental income from bookings was low and maintenance costs very high.
“The re-ordering of the church (which was not optional – dry rot necessitated the extensive work undertaken to eradicate it and to replace the floor) provides us with an opportunity to make the church a much more accessible and usable building for the future, both for worship (our primary focus) and for the community.
“The Diocese supports this action.”
It was in January 2025 that the PCC decided to explore the sale of the church hall. This decision was made in the light of the feasibility study spoken about at the meeting in the church in March that an estimate of necessary repairs to the Hall was £115,000. After a careful examination of church finances and the consideration of proposals to reorder the church, the PCC had sufficient funds (with a loan from the Diocese using the Church Hall as collateral) to go ahead with phase one of the church reordering project, and are proceeding with that.
And so, the church hall, funded by the people in the first place, is in danger of closing down and, if it does, a valuable and versatile facility will be no more. Apparently, the smaller church hall, which is currently occupied by Durham Constabulary and used as a police station, will not be affected by the sale.
Volunteers at the weekly Food Bank are worried they will not be able to find an alternative space to work out of in Stanhope as are those folk who help out at the Toddler group, which is much valued by isolated young mothers around the Dale. All the groups who use the hall – and it IS well used – were not informed of the decision to sell, only discovering plans after news leaked of the announcement in church.
It has come as a shock to the local community, especially to the group that has been working for many months on funding bids to try and buy the building. The people of Stanhope are weary of campaigning to save community buildings to no avail with Newtown House and Stanhope Town Hall two which come to mind.
The Gazette will publish more information as the story progresses…
