When St Nicholas’s Church in the Oxfordshire village of Tackley was left a bungalow by a generous benefactor, the PCC carefully weighed up the options. Though the house was structurally sound, it was in need of refurbishment and modernisation. Whilst having no desire to become property developers, the PCC decided that the most appropriate response to the gift would be to turn one house into three attractive, modern stone cottages. Two houses were sold to cover the cost of the development and one retained for church use and to rent out.

The houses are purposefully traditional in style so as to blend in with the characterful Cotswold village and to gain support from planning officers and neighbours. Each house is a good size; two have three bedrooms and the middle house has four. Each has off-road parking for two cars, access from front to back garden and open-plan ground floor layout.

This is a good example of a church investing wisely; the site has been developed sensitively, providing the village with three attractive homes in place of the tired bungalow. The gift has been multiplied, ensuring that rental income will feed back into church mission for years to come.

Revd Marcus Green – former Rector, St Nicholas Tackley said:

“Leap Architects listen. When we began looking at people to help us with our projects, we heard a lot of people telling us what we needed; Kelvin and his team listened to what we were saying and through every stage responded to our needs and requests and helped us achieve what we wanted. For a small church set-up Leap have been perfect – we can’t project manage and run everything. But Leap looked after things and enabled us to do far more than anyone on the PCC thought possible. Kelvin approaches all sorts of situations calmly. Any project can have its tricky moments, and working with Kelvin has always meant that any unexpected or tricky moments have been sorted out well.”