St Mary's Access and Green Spaces Project
Page last updated: April 2025
We have been working hard on developing plans for our Access and Green Spaces project. After consultation with groups and the wider community, our proposals have been developed and costed. We have sought support from St Albans Diocese (that's the Church of England's regional base for St Albans) who have been very encouraging of our plans and ideas, and now we are into fundraising!
Aims of the Project
1. Improve Accessibility
with accessible, electronic opening, glazed doors; level access, into the building and gardens; and wheelchair accessible garden spaces and furniture.
2. Widen Use
through the provision of an enclosed garden space; enlarging our quiet garden area for community use, planting a wild garden area, and creating a new ‘village green’ open space for daily use by the community and for larger events.
3. Increase Visibilityby effective landscaping, the use of glazed doors, and improved signage.
Phases and Total Costings
We have plans created by MEB Design Ltd, and draft costs from our quantity surveyor for each of the three identified phases. The total cost for the whole project is £211,000, which we have broken down into phases to focus our fundraising and our work.
PHASE ONE: £78,106
Green Space and Doors: Enclosed, play area; improved quiet garden; level access to all spaces; electronic opening glazed main entrance; and wheelchair access to community quiet and kitchen gardens.
Fundraising began in February and so far we have already raised nearly £30,000 towards this phase (as of 14th April 2025)
PHASE TWO: £53,632
Village Green: Open space on the South side of the church, with furniture, planting and hard standing for access and community events, and electronic glazed doors with level access.
PHASE THREE: £79,250
Car park and pedestrian access: Redesigned car park and pedestrian access to North side main entrance.
QUICK WINS: £2,904
In addition to these phases, are the ‘QUICK WINS’ which mean we can start to make a difference to our spaces in 2025.
Fundraising began in February and we have already fully funded our quick wins - work will be starting summer 2025!
How you could help
We are looking for donations or both finance and skills. If you have gardening and/or landscaping skills, we’d love to hear from you – whether to help us in the planning stages or perhaps to help with maintenance. Monetary donations of all sizes are gratefully received; from smaller amounts that will help us with planting our wild garden and the new planters, to larger amounts that can be designated to particular aspects of the project. Donors can be recognised on a dedication plaque, either with their own name, an organisation name, or in memory of a loved one. We would love to hear from anyone able to offer support to this project; please get in touch.
You are of course also welcome just to give directly, click here to go to our Give A Little campaign page for this project.
Feedback
We're really grateful to everyone who gave feedback - groups and individuals. We want to keep receiving feedback all through the life of this project; please get in touch with any ideas, questions or concerns.
Page updated: April 2025