ABERYSTWYTH Town Council has submitted plans to transform part of a town church site it bought to use as its base.

The council agreed late last year to spend £240,000 on the restoration of the presbytery of the former St Winefride’s Church building, which it bought two years ago for £360,000.

This week, the council submitted plans for the renovation, which will include forming new offices, installing PV offices, PV panels and changing windows to double glazed sash windows.

St Winefride’s Church and presbytery have stood on Queens Road since 1875, welcoming worshippers until it closed in 2012.

It remained untouched and under threat of demolition until Aberystwyth Town Council bought it with the aim of restoring and adapting the site to create a fully accessible cultural and community centre, providing event space, flexible multi-purpose facilities for local groups, a civic space for town events, offices for the council and a functional outdoor space.

The council renamed the building Neuadd Gwenfrewi.

The first phase of the project to reinvent the building was to work on the presbytery to use as the council’s offices.

At a meeting before Christmas, town councillors signed off on an estimated £240,000 to restore the presbytery, a price the council “felt to be very reasonable due to the building’s condition.”

Councillors recommended that they “proceed with the restoration as soon as possible as well as the sourcing of funding for the whole development.”

“Council reserves would either be used to fund the restoration or as match funding for the wider restoration project depending on what funding options were available,” a report added.

Aberystwyth Town Council held a community consultation on what to do with the site in 2022, as plans for its complete restoration – which could cost more than £1m – begin to take shape.

Originally marketed in August 2020 at offers around £250,000 by the diocese, which closed it in favour of revamping a church in Penparcau in a controversial move which caused a longstanding battle between parishioners, the town council ended up paying £360,000 for the building due to the “buoyant market” at the time, using cash reserves it had built up “over a number of years”.

The building is the first to be owned by Aberystwyth Town Council since 1974.

The council said at the time that, with more services being taken on by community councils due to “long-term financial pressures at the county level”, the town council also needs accommodation as it pays “significant rent” for its premises on Baker Street “which are problematic in terms of access and which do not encourage public participation”.

The first year of ownership saw the council ensuring the building is safe and secure and fixing any structural issues before work could begin.

The plans will be decided upon by Ceredigion County Council planning officers later this year.