HEREFORD-based Freedom Church has the go-ahead to turn the city’s former Odeon cinema and night club next door into a new HQ.

A related planning application made to Herefordshire Council was approved without being put to the planning committee.

Current criteria require councillors or council officers to request that an application is put to committee – no councillor or council officer made such a request for the cinema/club conversion.

No objections were raised on planning grounds.

Both the cinema and nightclub (formerly Fusion) in Commercial Road have been vacant for over a year.

In its application - reported by the Hereford Times in June - the Freedom Church said the site offered the “framework that we are looking for”  in re-locating from its current campus – a converted warehouse in Coningsby Street - where services attracted between 280-300 a week.

The Coningsby Street site is now under offer as a freehold interest - available with vacant possession -  at an asking price of £350,000.

In Commercial Road, the Freedom Church proposes the site for a 450 seat auditorium and offices with space for Sunday services, youth work, a parent and child group, and a nursery.

Also pitched is the potential to make the site available to other community groups.

A statement accompanying the planning application said the Freedom Church was: “committed to maintaining our presence in the heart of our city and developing strong links and relationships with local businesses, other churches, voluntary organisations, schools and communities across the city”.

Founded in the county 26 years ago, the Freedom Church has experienced significant growth.

The past seven years alone have seen the establishment  of international campuses in Belgium, Uganda and Cambodia  - with two more planned in India and South Africa - to complement a presence in Swansea, Cardiff and Worcester.

Most recently, the church converted a former hostel in Holme Lacy Road, Hereford, to add to its local property portfolio.

Planning approval - granted as a change of use  last month - gives the Freedom Church  three years to make the move happen.

 

Other than the statutory period for implementation, no conditions were considered necessary.

 

BACKGROUND – Planning applications

Herefordshire Council’s planning committee will determine applications where:

- The application has been called in for committee determination by the relevant ward member.

- The application is submitted by the council, by others on council land or by - or on behalf of - an organisation or other partnership of which the council is a member or has a material interest, and where objections on material planning considerations have been received, or where the proposal is contrary to adopted planning policy

- The application is submitted by a council member or a close family member such that a council member has a material interest in the application

- The application is submitted by a council officer who holds a politically restricted post and/or is employed in the planning and transportation service, or by a close family member such that the council officer has a material interest in the application

- The application, in the view of the assistant director for places and communities, raises issues around the consistency of the proposal, if approved, with the adopted development plan

- The application, in the “reasonable opinion” of the assistant director economic, environment and cultural services, raises issues of a significant and/or strategic nature that a planning committee determination of the matter would represent the most appropriate course of action, or

- In any other circumstances where the assistant director economic, environment and cultural services believes the application is such that it requires a decision by the planning committee.