Archive content
This is a text-only version of an article first published on Tuesday, 29 June 2021. Information shown on this page may no longer be current.
Resuscitating the heartbeat of the community in Blackbird Leys
Holy Family Church in Blackbird Leys, Oxford, is one of the few LEPs with five denominations meeting together in a single service; Anglicans, Methodists, URC, Baptists and Moravians.
Blackbird Leys is one of the poorest wards of Oxford, with unemployment four times higher than the city average and some 34% of children living below the poverty line, but it maintains its strong sense of community spirit - not least of which through the Holy Family Church, which has been at the heart of the community since the 1960s. Although an innovative and creative build in the 1960s, constructed in the the shape of a heart to align with the strap line of being 'the heartbeat of the community', it had been in need of some 'refinements' for quite some time, especially in terms of making it watertight.
In 1990, the roof was replaced - only for the leaks to reappear five years later.
When Revd Heather Carter arrived in 2012, fundraising and plans were afoot to recover the roof, but further investigations began to show this would be more expense into the ever-widening 'black hole' of funding.
Responsible stewardship had to face the possibility of a complete rebuild.
This was met with a lot of heartache for a much-loved building. Heather says,
"We talked, we prayed, we thought, we prayed. We continued to mop, patch and repair.When the contractors said they could do no more, Denise and I went up and continued to patch and make watertight.
(Ministry training should always include an element of DIY training!)"
Estimated costs for a repair and/or replacement came in at around £2m, and every avenue explored for funding was met with an unenthusiastic response about supporting a project that would still be fundamentally flawed and would need further repairs in ten years. Over the course of the next three summers, local people were consulted on what they would like to see in a new build.
Project proposals were drafted and redrafted, keeping in mind what a church in the 21st century needed to be.
Unfortunately, by Christmas 2018, the roof was declared unsafe and the church moved into the church hall. At the same time as this, Oxford City Council had also been rethinking their plans for buildings around the church that needed updating.
It made sense for Holy Family's architects and the council's to join together in the design planning, although the two plans were to remain separate and independently financed as stand-alone projects. Plans for a new church, vicarage, 20 local housing units and community infrastructure on the site - including incubator space for young entrepreneurs, a community hall/creche and cafe, credit union and citizen's advice bureau, were drawn up.
Heather continues,
"Once again, we wanted the church to be the heartbeat of the community - something much more than a Sunday building; rather one that was buzzing seven days a week, bringing church into everyday life - as a building and as people who care and share and walk beside the whole community, church members or not. "
In April of this year, four years after Heather and her team's planning application journey began, permission was granted by the City Council to:
a) demolish a listed building - a rarity in itself!
b) to develop the land.
The estimated total build cost is around £7.5m, and the sale of housing stock and gifts so far pledged gives them around £2m still to raise. The church and local community are about to start a major fundraising push with Heather at the heart of it.
She and a couple of her friends are aiming to walk 2022km over the next year, ending on 30 June 2022, with the hope of raising £2,022 towards the £2m still needed to rebuild. Donations can be given via the church's website, Holy Family Church, or you can sponsor Heather by visiting justgiving.com/crowdfunding/holyfamilybbl.