Leamington Hastings

News Update
Feb15^th

Having made some rapid progress in the first few weeks after the fire, in basic cleaning, and erecting a temporary roof and partition to enable Christmas services to go ahead in the Chancel, the PCC is now working hard to get the Church back in commission as soon as possible. With much help from our architect and quantity surveyor, we are currently going through the process of surveys, architect drawings and DAC (diocesan) and insurance company approval for works. We are also engaged in the tendering process to select appropriate repairers. We are currently taking tenders for removing soot contamination from inside the church.

As we first suspected, the work required is considerable and the church is unlikely to be ready for at least the first two concerts. We are hoping that we may have a chance of the third concert in Leamington Hastings. Accordingly, concerts for May and June are booked at St Mark's, Bilton; the decision on the July concert venue is still to be finalised. St Mark's came to our rescue at Christmas and once again we cannot thank them enough for their help.

As the picture becomes clearer, we shall publish further news.

News Update
Dec 4^th

On the morning of Monday November 30^th 2009 flames were observed coming through the roof of the south aisle of Leamington Hastings church. By the time the fire brigade arrived, most of the timber and inflammable parts of the side aisle had gone. However, by the time the fire was out, it was apparent that the rest of the church was largely undamaged, apart from serious smoke damage. And all the stonework seems sound, apart from one pillar cracked by heat.

At the time of writing this we still await the result of police and fire investigations, although there seemed to be clear evidence of an intruder.

We are also awaiting a full survey of the damage; but if this shows that the damage is limited to the south aisle, it seems at this stage that it should be possible for most of it to be useable by May 2010. We believe that all the professionals involved will be working to this end. We are therefore going ahead with planning our programme for 2010