17th February 2020 

Update from Sam Lewis (Project Manager) about our Planning Application for Vineyard House

In September 2019 we submitted our planning application for Vineyard House, and just before Christmas we found out that our application had been successful. This is an amazing answer to prayer, we've reached another huge milestone for the project!

The planning permission comes with conditions (expected for a listed building), which require us to submit more detailed plans for particular aspects of the project, ensuring that the work to transform Vineyard House is done in a sensitive way that is in keeping with the original architecture as it is carefully restored.

The project will see the beautiful grade II listed St Michael’s Hall building, transformed into a brilliant new community space with meeting spaces, a large venue space, offices, and a prayer room. It will provide lots of room for kids and youth activities, as well as providing a base for the church’s growing number of compassion ministries.

What’s Next?

We are looking to renovate Vineyard House in phases. We have already started working on plans for Phase 1 which, now that planning permission has been granted, we will look to progress further.

There are a number of items requiring our immediate attention to improve the safety, security and comfort of those currently using the building. Stephen (our brilliant architect) and I will be working together over the next few months to address some of these issues, and to look at the possibility of replacing the three windows in the large ground floor meeting room at the back of the building.



We’ve recently set up a light, so that each evening the stained glass window at the front of the building is illuminated and the light from Vineyard House shines out in the darkness.

Where are we with funding?

Cath has been working behind the scenes with FutureKraft, a fundraising consultancy firm who strategically advise faith-based community projects and whose input to the project is grant funded. The outputs of this work have been a Community Scoping and Consultation Report which highlights and substantiates the need in the area and potential gaps in provision.

We have captured the current impact of the church’s current activities and uncovered the rich history of Vineyard House to help us reconnect, tell the story and build the legacy of the building’s purpose for generations to come.



Cath has built up relationships with local historians and a mini social history project is about to go live with the help of church members – we hope this will be a great way to engage with our neighbourhood and that there will be many interesting conversations to come from it. Another key piece of work that we’ve been doing with FutureKraft is around Identity and messaging for Vineyard House and how that might be aligned to the church’s vision and expression of compassion. We are also well on with the business plan for the project which is key for the case we take to funders for Phase 1 shortly.

Reflections

After having an explore for the first time, Alex Harbour, one of our former students says: “The other day, David showed me around all of Vineyard House in its fullness for the first time, explaining what each area is to become as we went along. The image that was created wasn’t merely of bricks and mortar, but instead of all the people who would visit the building. I could sense the atmosphere that would permeate the building; a place of relationship and connection, a dynamic place full of energy and life, a refuge for the homeless and the lonely. I was struck by the sense that if Vineyard House is to become all that it could become, Headingley would have to change. Its reach into the community would change its heart and it would be a Kingdom transformation. I can’t help but hunger after this picture of how our community in Headingley could be impacted through Vineyard House. It truly is the pearl of great price.”

Keep reading our blog updates to find out more, and join us at our next community event that we'll let you know more about in our next blog update. In the meantime we welcome your prayer support as we prepare the ground for our funding applications.

If you would like to contact Cath or me about anything relating to the Vineyard House Project, please do email us via the office.
 
Sam Lewis