Fife church gets go ahead to expand

The church, at 38 North Street, will introduce a phased extension project to enhance its facitilities.

Phase one will see the installation of an extension which will consist of a new office, prayer room and meeting room on the first floor level.

Phase two will see the building of new stairs and new floor over the existing meeting room, and phase three will look at installing an AV screen and speakers so that users can have an audio and visual feed  from the sanctuary.

Future phases of work will look at the re-levelling of the sanctuary floor to line up with the raised level of the rear to provide a single level of access across the entire lower floor of the building. It will allow improved disabled compliant level access to the church for all users.

The development hopes to “ tidy up” the side access to the church and provide a more attractive disabled compliant access to the rear hall, kitchens, and WCs of the church.

The extension will incorporate a new scraped render external finish over both the existing rear building and a flat roof to enhance the building’s weather protection.

It will present a more contemporary coherent elevation which will contrast with the historic fabric of both the Lister Memorial Hall and the main 19th century sanctuary of the existing church building.

The new extension is estimated to have a 25 year lifespan.

A design statement prepared by architects for the project, Fouin and Bell, stated: “The church is seeking, to improve and enhance its community facing facilities, to more fully integrate with the community on its doorstep and to better meet known needs in terms of childcare, youthwork and the provision of community based facilities.

“The issue facing the church was one of lack of space, both within its site and within its building.

“A review of its current space use resulted in a phased plan to re-arrange its current internal plan spaces to allow more flexible use of existing spaces along with enhanced kitchen and toilet facilities.”

Hannah Brown , Local Democracy Reporting Service