An historic city church is still in a dilapidated state as doubts continue over its long-term future.
It was revealed back in July 2019 that crucial funding had been promised for Liverpool's rundown Welsh Chapel which would see it transformed after 30 years of lying abandoned. The former Welsh Presbyterian Chapel in Toxteth had stood forgotten on its Princes Road site, with the only visitors being urban explorers.
Merseyside Buildings Preservation Trust, which owns the church, was awarded vital cash from lottery bosses which would have seen it reborn and turned into a state-of-the-art hub for under-privileged children in the city. The preliminary grant of £260,000 was to be used to draw up detailed design plans.
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It was hoped there would be a follow-up cash injection of £2.5m, which would revamp the former Sunday school and presbytery, along with the rest of the structure, and allow Liverpool charity KIND - Kids in Need and Distress - to move into the revitalised site.
The scheme would also have needed around £2.5m of money to be fund-raised to match the lottery grant. But now it appears the project has collapsed, partly because of failure to secure funding from the Government's Levelling Up fund for regeneration projects around the country.
KIND chief executive, Stephen Yip, said: "Our plans for the old church were amazing and would have won awards. This is a 153-year-old building which has been derelict for so long. We were going to give it back to the city.
"The church has been part of my life. I was pushed past it when I was a child in a pram, and I've pushed my own kids past it in their prams. I'm heartbroken about it. This was going to be our legacy to the city, but now it won't be."
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Bill Maynard, chairman of the Merseyside Building Preservation Trust, added: "It's very sad that KIND will not be proceeding further and are withdrawing from the project. This is not the best of times to get public money for any regeneration work. It would have been a great end use for the building."
The planning application is still being processed by Liverpool Council, but it is now hoped a private contractor will take on the project to deliver a nursery, creche, and children's centre at the old church.
Mr Maynard said: "The building is in a sorry state. This is an £8m project in one of the most deprived parts of Liverpool, and we hope somebody will be able to keep the momentum going."
A spokesperson for the city council said: "The planning application is in the middle of being processed and is almost complete."
The Welsh Church was built between 1865 and 1867 and courtesy of its 200ft steeple, was the tallest building in Liverpool when it opened in 1868. It became unoccupied in the 1980s and degenerated into a perilous state.
