live projects

St Ninian's Church, Pagham

We have been invited to work on a project in Pagham, a parish just outside Bognor Regis on the south coast. As you approach the coast through a maze of semi-detached houses, you arrive slowly at Pagham Harbour, and Pagham Spit- the gateway to a stunning salt-mash landscape. The area has been designated a 'Site of Special Scientific Interest', and a nature reserve, and is protected from development. The incredible flatness of the landscape, the smell of salt, the dramatic skies and the cries of migrating birds are an incredible experience for visitors from London.

The URC in Pagham are already strong supporters of the local community and provide a Hall and a smaller meeting room for public hire. The church would like next to refurbish the existing church to provide a larger, sprung-floored Hall for physical and social activities and to build itself a smaller more intimate sanctuary, - all without seeking additional funds. The provision of housing on the church site and the intensification of the village centre would seem to be a way of achieving all the church's social and spiritual and commercial aims in tandem.

The demand for more housing, mostly in smaller units, throughout the whole of Southern England is well documented and has given rise to spectacular proposals for development in West Arun at Bognor and N. Bersted. This proposal seeks to achieve a small contribution to national and local targets by the sensitive addition to a pre-existing village centre rather than though the creation of new estates or by major redevelopment. Space standards in the proposed flats exceed national requirements for lifetime homes and the provision of a lift should make the flats attractive to all ages and especially those who do not want to tend a garden or pay significant heating bills, but want to have a close relationship with the natural landscape and the not-so-distant sea.