Fresh plans to create Christian community centre and church in place of former Peterborough Barclays

Fresh plans have been submitted to turn a former Barclays in Peterborough into a church and community centre.

The vacant building at 114-116 High Street in Fletton was formerly home to Barclays Bank until it was closed in August 2022.

Plans state that the building would be converted into a church and community centre for the Christian faith “for new communities which have recently settled in Peterborough.”

It adds: “The groups ambition is to have their own place of worship, establish centre for education, preaching, religious and cultural activities, whilst maintaining their identity, coordinate and co-operate with other groups and faiths towards peaceful co-existence and better inter – community communication and relationship.

The Community Centre is proposed to be a centre to positively impact lives.

The support on offer would include providing free training to people of the community from different works of life in how to prepare your CV, how to prepare for interviews and building healthy self-esteem.

Across the building’s two floors, there would be two function halls, a recreation room, three classrooms, a meeting room plus a reception/waiting area, staff room and office.

Opening hours for the centre would be 10am to 6pm Monday to Friday, as well as worship hours being between 9 am to 4pm on a Sunday and 6pm to 9:30pm.

There is expected to be two to three sessions of worship between these hours, with 30-40 worshippers on site.

Two full-time staff members, as well as six volunteers, would run the centre, which would offer 13 parking spaces.

The application can be viewed on Peterborough City Council’s planning portal and can be viewed using reference 24/00545/FUL.