🎉 1,250 SIGNATURES – THANK YOU!
🎉 1,250 SIGNATURES – THANK YOU!
Our petition to save the former Cleveleys United Reformed Church from demolition has now reached another major milestone: 1,250 signatures.
A huge thank you to everybody who has signed, shared and supported the campaign, and a particularly warm welcome and thank you to the 250+ people who have joined us since we passed 1,000 signatures. The continued growth of the petition demonstrates just how many people believe that this historic Cleveleys landmark deserves a future.
Importantly, that support is already being formally put before the decision-makers. A fixed list containing 1,205 petition signatures was submitted directly to Wyre Planning, and the Council has since confirmed in writing that the petition has been added to the planning file for application 26/00116/FUL and that the case officer has been notified of its addition.
Since that fixed list was produced, the petition has continued growing and has now reached 1,250 signatures.
📝 NOW WE NEED YOUR INDIVIDUAL OBJECTIONS
Signing the petition is enormously valuable, but please don't stop there.
If you haven't already done so, please consider sending your own objection to Wyre Council regarding planning application 26/00116/FUL. Individual planning representations allow residents and supporters of the church to explain directly to the Council why they believe demolition is the wrong outcome.
You don't need to write pages and pages. A concise objection, written in your own words, can make your views clear.
If you're wondering what issues you could raise, here are some of the strongest objection points:
REUSE SHOULD BE PROPERLY EXPLORED BEFORE DEMOLITION
The end of the building's use as a church does not mean the end of the building's useful life.
Former churches throughout Britain have successfully been adapted for completely different purposes — including community, commercial, residential and even retail uses, proving it CAN BE DONE. The Government has itself commissioned research examining the planning choice between demolition and redevelopment versus retrofit and reuse.
This building is standing and capable of adaptation. Indeed, its potential for conversion has previously been demonstrated through an earlier planning permission for residential reuse.
Before an entire historic building is permanently destroyed, realistic opportunities for retaining and adapting it should be properly explored. Demolition should not become the default simply because starting again on a cleared site is easier.
The next chapter for this building should be REUSE, not RUBBLE.
TOTAL LOSS OF A RECOGNISED NON-DESIGNATED HERITAGE ASSET
This is not simply an unwanted old building.
The former church has been recognised as a Non-Designated Heritage Asset (NDHA) AND Lancashire County Council have added it to the HER ( Historic Environment Record ) which is the first 20th Century building they have ever regionally listed onto it.. Its heritage significance has also been recognised by heritage specialists and national amenity organisations.
National planning policy requires the effect of an application upon the significance of a non-designated heritage asset to be taken into account, with regard to the scale of any harm or loss and the significance of the heritage asset.
Here, the proposed harm could hardly be greater: complete demolition means complete and irreversible loss. That raises a fundamental question which deserves serious consideration:
Are the claimed public benefits of constructing another new-build convenience store sufficient to justify the permanent and total destruction of this recognised heritage asset?
Once the church has gone, that decision can never be reversed.
🌱 DEMOLITION, EMBODIED CARBON AND NET ZERO
There is also an important environmental argument.
A substantial existing building represents an enormous quantity of embodied carbon already invested in its bricks, structure, roof and other materials. Demolition discards much of that investment, creates waste and is followed by the emissions associated with transporting materials and constructing an entirely new replacement building.
Government research has recognised the importance of reducing embodied carbon from buildings in achieving the UK's Net Zero objectives.
At a time when councils and government are committed to reducing carbon emissions, the environmental consequences of demolishing a substantial reusable building and replacing it with a completely new structure deserve proper consideration.
The greenest building material can often be the material that is already standing.
THE LOSS OF A HISTORIC CLEVELEYS LANDMARK
Our continuing historical research has revealed that the church's importance to Cleveleys goes considerably deeper than was previously understood.
The church site formed part of the developing historic nucleus on the western side of the tramway, established before much of the suburban development which subsequently surrounded it. The surrounding street pattern and later development grew around this established landmark site, while other civic and community buildings clustered within the same area.
Contemporary evidence also demonstrates that the building was understood as an important and prominent addition to the developing townscape.
The church therefore contributes something which a replacement convenience store simply cannot reproduce: historic identity, continuity and a physical connection with the development of Cleveleys itself.
Demolition wouldn't merely remove a building. It would erase one of the landmarks through which this part of Cleveleys tells its story.
📐 DANIEL WYNNE-THOMAS – A SIGNIFICANT ARCHITECT WHO HAS BEEN LARGELY FORGOTTEN
The historical research undertaken since this campaign began has also transformed our understanding of the architect responsible for the 1932 church: Captain Daniel Wynne-Thomas FRIBA.
Research into his career and surviving buildings is continuing to uncover the work of a remarkably accomplished architect whose contribution has largely slipped from public memory.
The evidence increasingly indicates that the Cleveleys church is one of the strongest surviving examples of Wynne-Thomas's architectural work. A significant proportion of his known buildings have already been demolished, substantially altered or otherwise lost.
His career extended far beyond Cleveleys and included commercial, institutional, residential and commemorative architecture. Research into his early career has also revealed evidence of the high architectural calibre at which he was operating.
The survival of the Cleveleys church therefore matters not only locally. It represents an increasingly important surviving part of the architectural legacy of Daniel Wynne-Thomas, an architect who's design language and philosophy was complimented by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, and that same philosophy displayed across the body of his work, including Cleveleys Congregational Church.
If it is demolished, we don't merely lose another old building. We lose one of the best surviving works of an architect whose significance is only now beginning to be rediscovered.
❤️ PLEASE KEEP GOING
To everyone who has signed, shared, researched, written objections, offered information or simply helped spread the word: Thank you.
1,250 people have now signed to save the church, with a fixed list of 1,205 signatures already formally submitted to Wyre Council and added to the planning file.
But this campaign isn't finished.
👉 SIGN AND SHARE THE PETITION:
https://www.change.org/p/save-the-cleveleys-united-reformed-church-from-demolition
👉 SUBMIT YOUR OBJECTION DIRECTLY TO WYRE COUNCIL:
https://publicaccess.wyre.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=makeComment&keyVal=TA93D4SDN4C00
Planning application: 26/00116/FUL
If you haven't submitted an objection yet, please consider doing so. Tell Wyre Council, in your own words, why reuse should be properly explored before demolition, why the complete loss of a recognised Non-Designated Heritage Asset isn't justified by the proposed replacement development, why demolition and rebuilding raise embodied-carbon concerns, and why Cleveleys shouldn't lose an irreplaceable historic landmark and one of the strongest surviving works of Daniel Wynne-Thomas.
Please also continue sharing the petition. Every new signature demonstrates the continuing strength of public feeling, while every individual planning objection puts those concerns directly before the decision-maker.
1,250 signatures and counting.
🏛️ SAVE CLEVELEYS URC
♻️ REUSE, NOT RUBBLE.
Thank you,
Ian French
( Petition creator )