AFTER 182 years, St John’s, Kensal Green, has become step-free thanks to a growing partnership between the church and Westminster City Council.
The new access will allow people in wheelchairs to enter independently. The London church, which has dedicated its Tuesdays to serving the community through a playgroup, dementia cafe, and community choir, will also be more accessible to parents with prams and elderly people.
“This is not just about paving,” the Vicar, the Revd David Ackerman, said. “It is about who can come through the door and how they come through it. A level threshold says you belong here.”
The removal of the step forms part of a wider transformation of the grounds, made possible through £150,000 of investment from the council. The diocese explained: “Five years ago, the pedestrian entrance opened onto a tarmac car park. Today it opens onto a York stone path set between lawns. A new side gate, created using restored nineteenth century ironwork, frames the approach. Lighting and CCTV have been installed, strengthening security while enabling the building to remain open.”
Fr Ackerman, who has served in the Harrow Road parish since 2013, spoke this week of the value of the church and its grounds to the community. The partnership with the council began with a Windrush Garden and sundial unveiled in the grounds in 2020 as a tribute to the Afro-Caribbean worshippers who had enabled the church to thrive. An open church gave “huge reassurance locally”, he said. “They feel safer; they feel it’s something open for them in the area where we are, where it’s valued.” The gardens were used by “huge” numbers in the summer, including people who had no garden of their own.
“The church is the one place where you come and sit down and we don’t want anything from you,” he observed. “It’s very counter-cultural; it can rather surprise people in a way.” He found the many candles lit by people to be “very moving”. The church distributes welfare support through The Paddington Charities.
Amid concerns about funding for the upkeep of churches, Fr Ackerman spoke of the importance of locating the many “pots of money” that existed, and “getting to know how to say things and what they are looking for”. Funders such as the National Lottery wanted to see evidence that a church was “open and inclusive and welcoming”, he said.
Meeting local councillors and offering them a tour was important while council priorities such as inclusion, greening, and Net Zero were ones that could align with a church’s plans. Westminster City Council has launched a £5-million Climate Fund (to help it to become a net-zero council), and St John’s is preparing a bid for the next stage of improvements.
“Whatever you want to do, start doing it in a small way, and say how we want to do more of this, but we can’t without support,” he suggested.
Paying tribute to his predecessors, still remembered with great affection in the parish, Fr Ackerman described the advantages that could flow from a long incumbency. He is now preparing for confirmation children he once baptised. “You can’t, as a parish priest, say ‘Let’s have the vision, but, by the way, in five years I’ll be gone,’” he said. “When they see us commit our own lives and time, people respond to that.”
