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Westbury Avenue Baptist Church
Westbury Avenue Baptist Church occupies a large corner site in the north side of Westbury Avenue in Haringey, North London. The existing buildings, a large Sanctuary and Community Hall, linked by smaller subsidiary rooms, are of masonry construction in orange brick, and date from approximately 1929.
The Reverend Joyce Grant on behalf of the congregation, sought out ideas for regeneration and redevelopment of the church site and buildings. The current congregation, regularly numbering between 50-100 persons, is led by the Deacons group, and is actively engaged in redefining the church Mission and vision for the future. It is anticipated that the resulting feasibility study will form a part of the wider exploration of the Vision for Westbury Avenue Baptist Church.
The buildings are currently used periodically, by the church for weekly worship and mid-week meetings, and rented out to other external organisations for regular and one-off bookings. However a number of areas require attention in addition to there currently being little or no wheelchair access and no disabled-WC provision.
The church is looking at the 'bigger picture' and wishes to take this opportunity to formulate an overall plan for the future of their buildings and the site as a whole. They are very keen to work in partnership with the local community as well as other local organisations, they embrace the ethos of social entrepreneurship, and the idea of how a combination of these could create a valued commodity within the local area.
For this Wyatt Maclaren produced six options for the development of the site at Westbury Avenue to illustrate and analyse the range of development opportunities available, with the expectation that this overview will allow the church to make informed choices as to how to proceed.
