Fight goes on to save historic ‘landmark’

Nov 13 2007 by Liam Murphy, Liverpool Daily Post

A MERSEYSIDE church which has stood for decades as a landmark for sailors returning home from sea could soon be facing redevelopment.

Urban Splash, which has won praise for its transformation of famous buildings across Merseyside, is understood to be interested in Wirral’s historic Saints Peter and Paul's church.

The congregation was told by the Shrewsbury diocese earlier this year that the historic church would be closed in 2009.

Since then a campaign group – Save Our Unique Landmark (SOUL) – has sprung up in a bid to retain the church as a place of worship for the local Catholic population.

Last night, local councillor Tony Pritchard, who has been backing the campaign to save the church, said he understood Urban Splash and others had been "showing an interest" in the building.

Saints Peter and Paul's is one of the most prominent landmarks on the Wirral coastline for sailors entering the Mersey estuary.

It is Grade II-listed, visible to all sailing into the Mersey, and known to sailors as the Dome of Home.

Cllr Pritchard said: "It’s not just the outside of the building people are concerned about. The inside has religious decoration, the altar and so on. A lot of religious people would consider it desecration if that was used for apartments."

The church is a monument to priest Father Tom Mullins, known as the Pope of Wirral, who masterminded the building in the 1930s.

His grand plans were viewed as over-ambitious by the diocesan authorities who, for sensible reasons, overruled the idea of a towering dome and other expensive embellishments.

In the mid-1990s, there was a pastoral review aimed at responding to changes in the numbers going to church.

The conclusion was that the church was too big, and it saw the suspension of spending on maintenance and repairs.

After the Diocese of Shrewsbury announced the closure plans, local people feared it would be left to fall into disrepair and then demolished and organised for repair works to be carried out to the fabric of the building to ensure its longevity.

Cath Nelson, treasurer of SOUL, said the campaign to save the church would "go all the way", and added: "I know the Church is very powerful but we as a group are powerful and very articulate."

A spokesman for Urban Splash declined to confirm or deny whether they were interested in the building. Fr John Joyce, spokesman for the Diocese of Shrewsbury, said the church would be making no more pronouncement about the future of Saints Peter and Paul’s until "all further considerations have been made and decisions taken".

The threat to the landmark has led to angry parishioners planning to take their fight to the top and they are preparing to send a delegation to the Vatican to plead directly to the Pope for the church’s preservation.

They have also had a letter of support for their campaign from Prince Charles.

liammurphy@dailypost.co.uk

Breathing life into old buildings

URBAN Splash was set up in 1993 by Tom Bloxham and Jonathan Falkingham who saw the potential in dilapidated buildings in Manchester and Liverpool.

Since then they have been involved in numerous projects across both cities and beyond.

In Merseyside some of its best known schemes include apartments at Concert Square, Old Haymarket and the Collegiate.

A mixed use development at the Tea Factory in the Ropewalks area was so popular all 30 apartments sold in a day.

The company was also behind the transformation of St Peter’s Church on Seel Street which had been built in 1788 and outraged some local Catholics when it became a bar and restaurant.