“God Isn’t Making Any More Land”: How London Churches Are Trading Space for Flats

• London churches are teaming up with developers to build homes on their sites
• Bethnal Green Mission Church gained a new church and 14 flats in a $9 million scheme
• St John at Hackney is funding its restoration alongside 58 new homes
• New Mildmay paired 35 homes with a new Baptist church

Across East London, congregations with big sites and small budgets are turning to developers, and getting new or restored churches in return for letting homes be built on their land. Metropolis magazine looked at the trend in November 2018.

At Bethnal Green Mission Church, developer Thornsett Group completed a $9 million project in October 2018 that delivered a new church alongside 14 flats, known as Macpherson Apartments, designed by Gatti Routh Rhodes. The scheme also added a street-facing café.

Thornsett was also working at St John at Hackney, where 58 homes under the Hackney Gardens name were due within months, and around $6.4 million was going towards restoring the church. Nearby, New Mildmay, completed in 2017 by Genesis Housing Group with Shoreditch Tabernacle Baptist Church, combined 35 homes with a new church building in a $58 million development.

The logic runs both ways. Churches own well-placed land in a city desperate for housing, and their historic buildings often need repair money they cannot raise from collections alone. Developers, meanwhile, get access to sites that rarely come to market. “God isn’t making any more land so we need to make better use of what we’ve already got,” said Bernadette Cunningham, a director of Thornsett Group.

For Jamaican churches, many of which own land in Kingston, Montego Bay and other towns but struggle to pay for roof repairs or new halls, these London projects show a middle path between selling up and standing still. A well-negotiated partnership can leave the congregation with a better building and a lasting presence on its own site. The key is to protect the church’s long-term interest: clear title, proper legal and valuation advice, and a deal that keeps the land working for the community rather than simply handing it over.

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