A community campaign is aiming to raise £150,000 by the end of March to buy a former chapel in Cardigan.

The first public meeting to progress the community purchase of the old Tabernacl Chapel in Cardigan was held on Saturday, 8 March 2025.

The response to the call for action to create a new high street located Community and Cultural Hub called “Hwb Aberteifi” - Tabernacl was excellent.

The voluntary committee have thanked everyone who came along with additional ideas for activities and raising annual income. There were many familiar and prominent Cardigan people and past Tabernacl chapel members at the meeting.

Jonathan Rees gave a presentation on the history of Tabernacle Chapel, and Richard Oernant Jones gave a detailed account of the aspirations of the Hwb project to become a high street location for community activities, training and a cultural centre to house the works and legacy of the local bard Dic Jones, all of this information is available within a comprehensive business model and financing schedule available via the project website.

The gathering then had aspirational details from Owain Dafydd who spoke about Fflach Cymunedol Ltd the community-owned recording studio and music label that wishes to relocate back to the vestry of the chapel and how the community recording label raised £72,000 recently in a share offer to expand their project at the Hwb site once the chapel is purchased.

Cris Tomos the treasurer of 4CG Cymru Ltd explained that in order to buy the old chapel, the project needs to raise £150,000 by 31 March to exchange contracts with vendors.

It is a very tight timeline but since launching the initiative on St Davids Day, the campaign has already raised £18,000 in loans from supporters.

Cris went on to explain that the plan is to ask 150 people to lend £1,000 for a guaranteed 4% interest a year for a period of 3 years to help buy the iconic building in the high street of Cardigan.

Cris added “Similar community purchase projects in Wales have worked well and we have seen generous people who have offered to lend larger sums of £20,000 and more. There is a means of offering a legal charge on the building as security for such larger loans. This is what was done last autumn when purchasing the chapel in Newport, Pembrokeshire, Bethlehem Chapel, where £145,000 was raised in 3 weeks.”

During the meeting in the Corn Exchange, an appeal was also put out for the Hwb Champions - 30 people to give their names as contact champions to then have a target of five friends, family members or neighbours - to lend £1,000 each.

If anyone has the time and the passion to be a Hwb Champion then please contact the project at [email protected] of phone the 4CG Cymru office in Pwllhai, Cardigan at 01239 621109

Loan agreements can be downloaded on the project website www.hwb-aberteifi.org or picked up at Awen Teifi or Community Bookshop.