New community space planned at All Saints church site in Whanganui East

Whanganui Anglican parish's Craig Harris says the entryway and foyer at All Saints church are "leaky and small". Photo / Natalie O’Reilly

Whanganui East’s Anglican church will get a makeover this year and the public is invited to have a say.

Part of the All Saints building on Duncan St is planned to be demolished in 2026, with a new structure replacing it.

Whanganui Anglican parish community engagement co-ordinator Craig Harris said strengthening work was underway on the main church building.

“The front part, the entryway and foyer, is leaky and small, and it’s not really up to much,” he said.

“We’ve had a few conversations with the Hakeke St Community Centre, because we want to work with them and do stuff that complements them and doesn’t compete.”

Harris said the parish had worked on what it wanted to include in the new space, but it was important to get community feedback.

A small playground and offices were part of the plan, he said.

“It isn’t fully finalised but we’re looking at having some sort of cafe space in there.

“If we put in a commercial kitchen, we would quite like to engage with people like [chef and former Ucol tutor)] Gina Guigou, to do training and cooking and preserving.”

Harris said he was involved in the Whanganui Food Security Co-operative and there was a need to “train people to get the most out of their food on a budget”.

“We can provide a place for that kind of stuff to happen.

“Basically, we want a welcoming space that the community feels they can belong to.”

Harris said fixed pews in the main church building would be removed.

“Obviously, that’ll be a worship place on a Sunday, but also a bit of a multipurpose space that could potentially be hired.”

Harris said in 2021, Whanganui congregations came together at All Saints for several weeks to discuss a future vision, including the use of Anglican properties.

Last year, All Saints’ hall was converted into Living Waters’ new GP clinic.

Several sites are having prefabricated homes added to them through the Anglican Diocese of Wellington’s Bedrock housing programme, including All Saints.

“We sold the [St John’s] church at Fordell and the community trust that was already involved there has picked it up and run with it,” he said.

St Mary’s Anglican Church in Upokongaro was deconsecrated last year, after nearly 150 years of service.

“We are in discussion with a few people about that being sold, and St Chad’s on St John’s Hill will likely go through a private tender process this year.”

That would leave Christ Church, St Luke’s, St Peter’s, St Oswald’s and All Saints, he said.

“All Saints has been empty for a while but we feel it’s time to re-establish a presence there.

“There was a small midweek congregation, but that was shut down about three years ago because it dwindled to four or five people.

“There haven’t been Sunday services there for years.”

Harris said plans for the community space would be finalised by the end of March.

“Then we’ll be working on consent processes and, hopefully, building will start later in the year.”

The community can provide feedback until the end of January, at surveymonkey.com/r/WhanganuiEastHub.

Mike Tweed is a multimedia journalist at the Whanganui Chronicle. Since starting in March 2020, he has dabbled in everything from sport to music. At present his focus is local government, primarily Whanganui District Council.