Repairs for dilapidated chapel approved

Plans for repairs to a dilapidated Grade II listed chapel have been approved.

Bishopwearmouth Cemetery chapel, in Sunderland, has previously seen scaffolding erected to protect the tower and spirelet with the building also being fenced off.

The city's council submitted an application to its own planning department for listed building consent, describing the chapel as being in "poor condition" with the spirelet "leaning and at risk of collapse".

It says other issues include parts of the building "breaking apart", the chapel roof being "in the process of slowly collapsing into the nave" and missing slates in many places.

Councillor Martin Haswell, a member of the planning and highways committee and ward councillor for Pallion, said the building's condition was a "bone of contention" for people living nearby.

The Liberal Democrat said: "It's deplorable that this [south] chapel has been allowed to fall into this state and residents have complained for a long, long time, so this is a positive step in the right direction.

"The council then must go ahead with completing that listed building work and then going for a heritage lottery grant to bring it back fully up to a standard where it can be let out to be a florist or a cafe or something, just to get it back into use and preserve it for the future."

Conservative councillor Michael Dixon, of the St Michael's ward, also welcomed the plans, saying it was "appalling" the chapel had been allowed to deteriorate so badly.

Council planning officers at the Labour-led authority had recommended the scheme for approval, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

In a report ahead of this week's meeting, they said the chapel was an "impressive example of its type, originally built in 1856 to the designs of notable Sunderland architect Thomas Moore as part of the wider municipal cemetery complex".

The chapel's northern twin, known as the Central Chapel, was demolished after a fire in the 1990s.

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