City church hires Barbican Centre

12:20pm Tuesday 7th October 2008

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OVER the years it has played host to concerts, comedy, carols and competitions.

Now, York’s Barbican Centre is to reopen – as a church.

York Elim Pentecostal Church has hired the city centre venue, and the congregation will move in later this month.

They will initially be there for one week only, before the building’s owners, Absolute Leisure, finally set to work on the long-awaited refurbishment.

But if the service proves successful, the church is hopeful it can meet there again in future, once the revamp is complete.

The Rev Graham Hutchinson, senior minister at Elim, said: “We think it will be great fun to be a church in the Barbican Centre.”

Members of the church will hold their 10.30am service in the centre on Sunday, October 19.

Asked how he had secured the deal, Mr Hutchinson said: “Refurbishments at the Barbican are about to start at any time, so the owners could only give us the okay at the last minute.

“We said we were willing and able to act on very short notice, and they have decided to fit us in.”

Elim moved out of its city centre premises in Swinegate in 2004, to be closer to its community.

The old premises have since been turned into the Biltmore Bar and Grill, while the church now meets in St Lawrence’s CE Primary School, in Heslington Road, where its congregation has swelled.

The church is now looking to move again, to a larger building that can meet its needs.

Mr Hutchinson said: “We now have many more people wanting to attend our church than we can fit in on a Sunday.

“To deal with that problem, we are starting mid-week micro-churches and are on the look-out for a larger Sunday venue.”

He added: “We would love it if they could fit us in again before refurbishments begin, but we are not counting on it.

“We would like to use it again after the building is finished.”

As reported in The Press, Absolute Leisure is to meet City of York Council this Friday, to discuss their plans for the building.

The firm’s managing director, Tony Knox, said he hoped to have a firm start-date once that meeting had been held, adding that work was “imminent”.

He said he did not anticipate any problems at Friday’s meeting, which he said was primarily a matter of “box-ticking”.

But the council’s leisure chief, Coun Christian Vassie, has warned that if Absolute Leisure was not meeting the conditions of its planning permission, the council would “assess its options”.

It could give the firm a four-week ultimatum, telling it to pay up or walk away.