The Runway Building Project

In 2018 GodFirst Church bought the premises at 15 Airfield Road in on the borders of Somerford and Mudeford in Christchurch Dorset to be converted into a multi-purpose, church and community hub.

We now have a fully-equipped Auditorium seating up to 500 people. There is also a separate meeting hall for 150 people with associated facilities for use particularly by young people, together with ancillary facilities for a Crèche, Day Nursery, Day Centre, Sunday School, Youth work, Training Centre and smaller meeting rooms. Informal meeting rooms and other spaces will accompany our café/ restaurant facilities for use by both the church and the community. The aim has been to make most of the spaces within the building multi-purpose, thereby ensuring that the use of the facilities is as flexible as possible.

Office space for church staff is another important requirement. This number is anticipated to increase when we are operating the new and larger premises. Located on the edge of an industrial estate, the new building will also provide meeting space and other services to officials and local businesses in the area. It has good road links and more than adequate parking space to service the needs of all proposed uses. No local authority funding has been required for this new facility; to date the proposal has been funded entirely from the resources of GodFirst and its members. The new facility will also help meet the aspirations of the Borough of Christchurch Local Plan for community facilities. Office space has been provided for current and future church staff to enable the new facility to be run in a professional and effective way for the benefit of the church and community.

GodFirst is active in collaborative and partnership working to create better, more sustainable outcomes and impact on our surrounding communities; it is for this reason that we want our new building to offer a central Hub for partners to use, to continue to deliver both universal services and more targetted intervention, in support of the needs of the community. This will continue to build on the strong partnerships and relationships that have grown over the past 30 years.

You can join us on this journey by giving through our building project page here