Objections to Culloden church plans

Some concern was recently expressed at a community council meeting regarding the plans for a new Culloden Baptish Church building in the Westhill suburb of Inverness. The objections were and are around the loss of "greenfield" space.

The church has been - since its inception - meeting in the Culloden Academy community school, but now feels that the time is right to have a permanent building for its own purposes; and as a facility for the surrounding community.

Rev. Jim Turrent is the pastor of the church and comments as follows:

Rev. Jim Turrent

You may have read the recent Press and Journal article of the l9th June regarding the proposed church development at Cradlehall. Prior to the article appearing on the evening of the it there was a meeting of the Westhill Community Council and some representatives of CBC attended.

There was a strong element of opposition to the plans in the meeting from those who border the site. We were, however, heartened by the level of support from the Community Council and from the floor of the meeting wit a good number recognising the wider and long term benefits to the community of such a development.

We are - and have been all through this process - sensitive to those who would be our immediate neighbours. Specifically we have changed the orientation of the building so that the gable ends are facing the adjoining houses and not the whole length of the building. The homes at the bottom of the site would be a reasonable distance from the building and be veiled with a tree line.

It was our understanding (and this was confirmed at the Community Council meeting) that precedent had been set on this site previously with plans for a swimming pool and other projects over the years.

Our vision is to provide a place of worship for our present congregation and a dedicated place of worship for the people of Cradlehall/Westhill. We wantto open the doors of our church centre for the community and provide a necessary facility - at no financial cost - for the wider community.

A good number of our church family live/work in the Cradlehall/Westhill area. We keep hearing - that as the population expands - so does the need for further amenity. We therefore want to;

open the doors of this proposed church centre to the community

do something for the seniors - providing a lunch club and other facilities

begin some kind of youth work to connect with the teenagers of Cradtehall - again we believe that this would be of benefit to the wider community

respond to the need for bigger facilities for the growing younger population including mother and toddler groups; and we are considering a nursery

have a café as a focal point for the community.

These are the ideas that we have at present. We would be glad to listen to any further ideas emerging from the community as to how we might be able to help.

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Ed footnote:

A short recorded interview with Jim Turrent is available to registered and logged-on site members