Since our appeal for financial support for the building remedial works costs started in March 2022 we have so far raised £98,223.10 (including Gift Aid and VAT refunds where allowed) which is AMAZING! Praise and thanks to the Lord and His people!

Please read on below for more information about our building and how you can help, as we still need to raise further funding.

Cornerstone Church had long outgrown its original home on Ramilies Road, and in July 2020 we were blessed with completing on the purchase of the former Dovedale Baptist Church. God had provided us with the finances to purchase it through the generosity of His people, and given that other others were received which were more than double ours, we definitely felt God had made this our new home for our church family. After some initial remedial works were completed we started meeting in our new building in April 2021.

We need to not forget why we purchased this building, and more importantly we need to remember who God is and what He has done so far: 

• He is THE provider of all we have and all we need. He provided this building for us when it looked so unlikely compared to the other offers.
• We have had 3 baptism services, with 15 people being baptised, including some of our children.
• People have come to know Jesus sat on these pews – that’s priceless!
• We’ve had 120 children visit us with their teachers from Dovedale Primary School – building relational presence for gospel impact.
• We have more space for Kids’ Church, as well as our mid-week activities including Bolder (our youth group), Little Pebbles (baby and toddler group), evangelism through fitness activities, support the South Liverpool Food Waste Community…the blessings from this building go on and on!

We are working on plans with a whole range of professionals (architects, heritage specialist structural engineers, quantity surveyors...) for longer term renovation plans to allow this building to be a blessing to our church, but also the wider community. These renovation plans are going to form a separate project once we have addressed the more urgent remedial works.

Significant and extensive remedial works have already taken place to both the internal and external issues we inherited upon purchase. A very large portion of the remedial works are focused on the external roofs and walls, as water ingress has been a major problem for years. We have made excellent progress on these works, but we still need further essential works to be completed to allow for the building to be watertight and functional. These works include:

• Perished masonry works; this large-scale work requires input from Heritage consultants, Conservation Officers, Architects, Heritage masonry specialists, Structural Engineers, and specialist stone masonry manufacturers.
• Many of the costs in this area were unforeseeable due to the nature of the damage being ‘hidden’ from easy access.
• Examples costs:
• Extended time for scaffolding likely to be upwards of £70,000
• Leadworks £23,590
• Supply of Terracotta 168 units £67,814.20
• Coping stones-lift and re-bed 450 @£50 each (£22500) - because they are unsafe at present.
• 6 small finials @ £750 and 2 large finials @ £1050 – to be taken down and re-built due to them being unsafe.

God has blessed us with such generosity financially throughout this period of acquiring and addressing the remedial work on the building, and we have already testified to his power working through this building.  

The summary of the financial income and expenditure to date is as follows:

• Total income to 1/3/2022, inclusive of donations (internal and external from Cornerstone), sale of Ramilies Road Chapel, Gift Aid, VAT reclaims and grants: £438,100.13
• Total expenditure to 1/3/2022, inclusive of purchasing the building, professional fees, internal and external works: £331,116.87
• Remaining needed projected to be: £170,000

Firstly, and critically, please pray as we seek to get the building restored to be in a good state to undertake God’s work through Cornerstone Liverpool – to be a blessing for both our use as a church as well as in its impact on the local community and beyond.

Our predicted shortfall of funding to complete the necessary remedial works is approx. £170,000 (inc. VAT) and we are aiming to raise this by July 2022.

If you can donate financially to support these works, please can you do so via our bank account which is used solely for the building works (it is a different account to our general giving account): 

Account name: Cornerstone Collective of Churches

Bank name: NatWest

Sort Code 600111

Account number 47493127

If you pay income tax in the UK then donations could be eligible for Gift Aid and if you give us permission to claim this it would add an extra 25% of your donation value at no cost to you. If you meet these criteria and haven't given us permission to claim Gift Aid on your donations already, please click here to fill out a short form for us.