After several years of wanting to open up the parish church building to the community, and trying to work out the best way of developing the existing structure to achieve that, we were suddenly presented with a unique opportunity!

What if we bought the old vacant Hop and Vine pub and adjacent hairdressers right opposite the church, and converted it into a cafe and hub for community events? After praying, we were sure that this is what God wanted us to do, so we went ahead and purchased the whole building, paying for it outright and using up most of our reserves.

Then came the challenge of drawing up plans for this complicated building spread over many different levels, and of raising the considerable funds needed to repair, update and equip it.

A church family giving opportunity in the Autumn of 2020, together with some heritage grant funding and other gifts, has raised just over £500,000. This was enough to show us that God was really behind this project and so, in faith, we gave the go-ahead to the architects, project managers, builders etc. to start the work. Our own volunteers worked tirelessly for a month or so to complete the strip out, and now the building is shrouded in scaffolding as the major repair and refurbishment is under way.

The completed building will offer on the ground floor a very attractive caf with about 45 covers, together with kitchen, storage etc., and a reception area for our church offices.

On the first floor there will be office space and three multi-purpose rooms which can be used by churches or the community for courses, small conferences, meetings etc. CAP (Christians Against Poverty) will be based here. The second floor will be home to our children and young people, where they will be able to make this loft area their own.

We aim to raise a further £125,000 by Christmas 2021 to complete the next phase of the project.

We are working closely with many local agencies towards the regeneration of St Austell, and we see the creation of the Trinity Centre and Trinity Cafe as an important part of our contribution towards this end.