A SWISS-BASED property developer is determined to proceed with her ambitious redevelopment plans for Delph Independent Chapel despite suffering a double setback.
The project to turn the building at the corner of Delph Lane and Hill End Road into apartments has occupied more than 10 years of Dr Paula Rothermel’s life.
Local opposition, the loss of funding and now a new planning set-back have thwarted the former Delph resident’s proposals for the village landmark.
The chapel, last used for worship in the late 1980s, has become a target for vandals, boarded up windows now ripped open, exposing the interior to the weather.
The adjacent burial ground, which includes three Commonwealth War Graves, is still in use with the most recent funeral taking place in December.
However, the graveyard is littered with memorial stones – some more than 250 years old – others cracked and stacked on top of each other.
A forlorn monument remembers three members of the Shaw family from the now demolished Shaw Hall at Grasscroft including four-year-old Platt Shaw, who died in 1849, and his sister Hannah, aged one.
The Independent has learned planning permission for seven apartments – granted in 2017 – has now lapsed.
But outline planning permission in April 2018 for two houses on adjacent land, which Dr Rothermel says are needed to finance the main plan, remains in place.
However, her application to alter the car parking configuration for the homes, was rejected on January 22.
Speaking to the Independent from Switzerland, Dr Rothermel confirmed she would appeal the decision.
She said: “I need to build the two houses to finance the chapel. I have a funder and a building firm to do it.
“But I can’t do it unless I can move the two spaces and Oldham Council say I can’t. They know I need to build the houses to finance the chapel.
“As soon as the chapel is renovated then there should be money from the sale of the apartments to put into the graveyard.
“I have been trying, mainly since 2007, to get the place renovated but it has been an uphill struggle.
“I am trying to make the chapel a nice place to look at and have a village graveyard that is something to be proud of. I have never had any plans to dig up any graves.
“If I had had support from the community for what I was doing it would have been done completed by now and people would be living in there.
“I am a very community minded person and there is nothing to stop anyone building houses over that graveyard. The one thing that does is I retain it.
“I lived in Delph for 12 years. My husband and I planned to have one of the apartments.
“Not once as anyone said it is a nice thing what you want to do.
“The Chapel will go for demolition if it is sold. That is certain. It is not listed even though I tried.
“I feel morally obliged to pursue the project and if I can’t pursue the project there is no money to do the graveyard. So, I would have to sell it.”
A spokesperson for Oldham Council said: “Planning permission has previously been granted for conversion of the chapel into apartments, which has recently expired. There is a separate planning approval for two houses.
“An officer will visit the site in order to assess its current state of repair and whether any remedial action can be taken.”
The Independent asked the Congregational Federation, who sold the building and grounds, for a comment.
Wow! The ‘absentee’ owner, only puts their side forward! Look there is Planning permission for the two houses with ‘parking’. There was Planning Permission to turn the Chapel into flats, again with parking. it is on the Public Record and anyone can access the planning records. The owner ‘spin’ on this whole affair is very interesting. The Chapel had been up for sale for £800,000 a vast sum! One could infer that they are asking an unrealistic price.
In respect of the Chapel Yard. Then the owner with the agreement of the Council have excavated the slope access. The only way to get into the upper area is via some steep and precarious steps. No consideration to those with mobility issues (the Council needs to reflect on this). Just because further Planning Permission has not been granted, doesn’t preclude the ‘Swiss based Property Developer’ from hiring commercial gardeners, to ‘fly mo’ the area say April/June/August and to basically tidy it, with light touch maintenance. The demolition of the Lych Gate, the removal of grave stones from the oldest section, the uprooting/felling of many trees, the removal of some of the window boarding are acts which fly in the face of efforts to gain support of the community.
The whole sorry affair is a disgrace. In the past the Community has tidied up the Chapel Yard, former Councillors Hulme and Kirkham organised this, so the owners comments are not fair and balanced.
The whole state of this decayed building, the carcass of Bailey Mill, the abandoned Public Toilets and the ‘hole in Dark Lane’, reflect poorly on the Council and the owners. Perhaps the elected members as well as the professional officers need to look at how to move this forward and have some form of tangible initiative.
dear sir, my mother and father are buried there, so i had an interest, my sister was married there, i went to church there, when little, and since the day i saw it for sale, i wanted to buy it, my idea was to mend the defects, and convert it to a single dwelling, tidy up the graveyard, and give free access to the good people of the village, at this time there was a offer of £15,000.00 for the church, from some artists, i was keen, so i offered £25,000.00, and sent a letter to the church owners , they in there wisdom , did not accept my offer, but sold it for less to someone else, (£5,000.00) i was told years later , i suppose the rest is history, i wanted to do what , was needed, get myself a home in the village were i lived for 22 years, not make vast profits, and a mess of a lovely graveyard,
i’am still a bit disapointed, derek,