Full Speed Ahead!

Words by Nigel Dickson
Photos by Julie Harris

The builders carefully slot each piece into place

Work on our new church building is progressing very nicely. Anyone passing Raglan Road will, no doubt, have seen for themselves that the steel erection is complete. This process occurred with minimum fuss. 

I don’t know about you, but the closest I ever get to construction work is putting together a flat-pack from IKEA.  Putting the framework together is a massively scaled-up version of that.  The respective parts are all manufactured off-site, shipped-in and then assembled into what you can see now.  When I’m flat-packing, more often than not there is something that doesn’t quite fit (not first time anyway), or I’m a screw short, or I find I’ve got a few little pieces left-over: which always leaves me with an uneasy feeling that something must have been assembled not quite as it should be.  Such flaws are almost always down to my incompetence rather than down to a faulty flat-pack.  Well, you’ll be pleased to know that there was no such incompetence on the part of our constructors at Raglan Road.  Everything fitted perfectly.  And to quote construction manager, David Leigh: “There was not a single spare nut or bolt to be found anywhere when the job was finished.”  Think I’ll have him round to do my next flat-pack job!

Industrial sized "flat pack" assembly!!

Starting to get a sense for the scale of the inner space 

The next job at Raglan Road is to create a metal deck to all floors.  This will then allow for concrete flooring to be put in during the week commencing March 5th, creating easy access to each floor for the builders.  In the middle of that week a roof lining will be installed, which means that the construction will be effectively weather-proofed, allowing building-work to carry on uninterrupted, even in the event of a late snowfall!  The roof will eventually be all-tiled, apart from one flat section which will be corrugated tin.

Real floors!!

On the week commencing 12^th March, Clive May’s bricklayers will start their work, and what looks like a ‘proper’ building will begin to materialise.  Whilst there was initial delay as the gas and electricity people needed to do all the necessary disconnection work, since then “Everything has been going really well” says David, and there is no foreseeable reason why the construction process should not be completed to schedule – in October.

View from the back of the site... what an operation!

Relations with neighbours remain good too.  One neighbour, opposed to the building from the outset, actually said that, despite his objections, there could be absolutely no complaints about the way the constructors had worked.  Neighbours have been consulted and informed every step of the way, and a response on one Neighbourhood Questionnaire said of the site:  “The appearance is good – very clean and tidy.  Keep up the good work!”

The view residents on Raglan Rd have

I am sure that we would all concur with that particular encouragement.  And those of you at the church’s ‘Engage’ meeting would, no doubt, have been further encouraged by the observation that, in these lean times, the only construction work to be seen in the whole seven-mile stretch of Chester Road, from Bowdon to Deansgate, is our LifeChurch!  It is a magnificent achievement for us, as a church, to have given so generously and sacrificially to this project, and – more significantly – a terrific sign of God’s grace to us!

The testimony of a church being built is a statement to thousands of commuters everyday