The Church

25/06/2026

READ ALL ABOUT IT… 🗞️ The news is out!

Yes, our planning permission has FINALLY been accepted 🎉

We are absolutely thrilled. This is something we’ve been working on behind the scenes for the best part of a year!

We couldn’t have done it without the continued support of our wonderful community so THANK YOU!

More updates to come and if you want to be added to our email updates list, just pop us an email on [email protected]

Paul & family x

Fire-damaged South Tyneside church set to be transformed as café plan gets green light

09/03/2026

Artist required 🙋🖼️

We are looking to have a couple of drawings made of how the church will look when completed. This could be a watercolour, sketch or another suitable format.

If anyone is interested in helping us with this or knows someone who might be, please email me at [email protected]

Thank you - Paul

06/03/2026

Good news! 🥳

Planning permission has eventually been submitted after many delays. This is for "change of use" from the auction house (what it used to be with the old owners) to our plans of a bistro business with community aspects and more!

Once this has been approved, we can start building work properly but in the meantime, we will be cracking on with smaller and lower cost remedial jobs.

We really do hope you like what we’re trying to do; improving the area and saving the church from demolition.There will be some tweaks along the way to these plans but this is the broader plan.

Can we kindly ask you for some extra support, if you can spare a couple of minutes to go into the planning portal (link below), type in reference number “260085”, click the application and click “comment on this application” you can leave your positive comments until 18.03.2026 and you can view the plans. Sometimes this doesn’t work so if not, if you simply search for plans in the last 31 days we are on page 4 or 5 currently.

Alternatively, click the “comment on this application” link below to go straight to the comments section. These extra positive comments may help us achieve planning permission faster and gives the council planners a good idea of the support we have.

Link to planning portal: https://planning.southtyneside.info/Northgate/PlanningExplorer/ApplicationSearch.aspx

“Comment on this application” link: https://planning.southtyneside.info/Northgate/PlanningExplorer/PLComments.aspx?pk=886398

Unfortunately if planning is not accepted soon or at all then we are unable to continue this project. The very latest the major works can start is April to mid May this year as we will miss the window for starting the roof ready for the winter if later. If this happens then the future is very uncertain. All donations will be refunded at this point if the work cannot go forward. Hopefully it won't come to this but we have to explain that it's a possibility, and be transparent. Ultimately It's now down to the planning dept.

We also still have our GoFundMe raising funds for what we are short for unexpected building works (see previous posts). If you’d like to donate, all money raised will go towards rebuilding the Church, mainly the large rear gable that has to be rebuilt. This is all to retain the external structure as it was and as it has been for the last 130 years. The link is here: https://gofund.me/7de4e46e0

If you have any queries regarding the planning application, please email [email protected] - we all work full time so don’t always see messages or comments on Facebook and therefore would like to direct all queries into one place ☺️

As always, we can’t thank you enough for all the support.

Paul & Family x

Hi, my name is Paul and my family bought a Church! The history & our aim: We … Paul Taylor needs your support for Rebuilding a church, reviving a community!

13/02/2026

Hello, it's February already... but Happy New Year! 🥳

Just a quick update from us to keep everyone in the loop.

You may have noticed we haven't updated in a while due to there not much happening on site at the moment because of the bad weather these past few months, but plenty has been going on behind the scenes.

We have recently had our final reports completed for the noise and odour assessments. We need these to assess any impact from the bistro and help us mitigate any disturbances to the surrounding neighbourhood.

Over the past 3 mths we've struggled to gain insight from structural engineers and it’s been difficult to get things moving. Hopefully we are now back on track.

In other news, we’re so grateful for the donations so far on our GoFundMe. All of the funds raised here will be used for the additional costs we will have to incur due to unexpected issues with the rear gable that holds the large arch. These funds will help towards its rebuild costs (unfortunately we will lose the old arch) as this work has had a huge detrimental effect on our budget.

Through our own funds and personal remortgage we can now gain a good chunk of the rebuild costs and once we can raise the remainder, the main works will hopefully start. In the meantime, we will continue some smaller lower cost repair jobs but we are still many £1000s short. With your continued support, it adds to the goal of keeping the church for the future. All funds received are ring fenced and should the rebuild not go ahead then all funds will be refunded to each individual who has kindly donated. So if you would like to donate, please do so on the link below.

https://gofund.me/7f7bdbd2f

We will be updating progress in more detail in a few weeks.

Thanks for any help & your continued support.

Paul 🤍

Hi, my name is Paul and my family bought a Church! The history & our aim: We … Paul Taylor needs your support for Rebuilding a church, reviving a community!