The purchase of the old Bethlehem Chapel in Newport Pembrokeshire has been achieved by members of the local community. The building will now be made watertight and a phased renovation has been agreed for the old chapel to become a community asset for developing projects. These include: a Heritage Centre, Welsh Language Centre, Arts Centre and Cultural Hub.
Cris Tomos the Community Assets Coordinator at PLANED Social Developments explained the process of purchasing the old chapel: “It has been a truly amazing community effort to raise the £150,000 within a period of 6 weeks to attend the public auction on the 30th August and then gather all the local loans to buy the building by the end of September”
Cris added “the building is now in community ownership and a new Social Enterprise called Canolfan Bethlehem (Bethlehem Centre) is planning to roll out activities at the site.”
The building was bought through the tremendous efforts of the volunteers talking to people about the importance of retaining the building for community use and then individual loans of between £500 and £30,000 coming in from people both near and far. The lenders will receive a competitive interest return and an application to the government EIS Tax relief investment scheme to allow UK taxpayers to claim 30% tax relief.
Cris continued, ” I have now had calls from many communities wishing to look at how they too could take on old chapels and churches that are closing.” Cris concluded: ” The future use of such buildings will depend on identifying groups of passionate volunteers to raise the finding and also pinpointing sustainable income to pay for the ongoing overheads and running the social enterprises.”
