Our south of the borough correspondent, SANDRA STEAD, looks into one of the more bizarre planning application received by the council, even by Croydon standards
“Sins downstairs, forgiveness upstairs.”
Place of worship: the Tree House pub in South Croydon
That was the shrewd assessment of one local when they heard that a planning application has been submitted to turn the first floor of the Tree House pub in South Croydon into a place of worship.
“That upstairs gonna need a lot of blessing,” they added, knowingly…
The Tree House, previously the Blue Anchor, at the junction of South End and Southbridge Road, is the last remaining large, roadhouse public house building along that stretch of road. Landmark buildings the Swan and Sugarloaf and the Red Deer have both undergone conversions of their own in the past decade or so, to serve the gods of Tesco and, initially, Morrisons.
The plans submitted to the council’s planning department would see the Tree House continue to operate as a pub downstairs, while the Dunamis International Gospel Centre would dispense blessings of a different kind on the first floor.
Upstairs at the Tree House was long used as a nightclub, once called Stairway, but post-covid that part of Croydon’s night-time economy has taken a big hit, and in some cases never recovered. The signs are all there: well, at least the To Let sign that has gone up this week outside The Store, the pub directly across South End from the Tree House, demonstrating how tough the hospitality business has become in the past few years.
Nonetheless, the suggested alternative use for the first floor of the Tree House has raised eyebrows among South Croydon locals, and not just because of the appropriateness, or otherwise, of having a place of worship over a boozer.
Dunamis International describes itself as “a dynamic Pentecostal Christian church founded by the man of god – Dr Pastor Paul Enenche”. It is based in Nigeria, where Dr Pastor Enenche is currently pursuing a defamation case against former members of his flock. God does indeed move in mysterious ways.
Making plans: Dr Pastor Paul Enenche
In 2018, the church opened the “Glory Dome”, its international headquarters on the airport road in Abuja, with a 100,000 capacity auditorium – bigger than Wembley Stadium and claimed to be the biggest worship centre in the world.
Their plans for the Tree House are somewhat more modest, but have already attracted widespread complaints: of the comments posted on the council’s planning portal with the application, 139 of the 192 have been objections, including a formal objection from Fairfield councillor Chris Clark.
In public, most of the objections have related to the lack of car parking provision in what the council has labelled “The Restaurant Quarter”.
“It’s a completely unsuitable site for a church of any denomination, with lots of traffic and no parking,” said one. “Croydon’s night-time economy needs saving, not reducing.”
The plans have no accessibility provisions for the worship space, in contravention of the Local Plan and the London Plan, as well as the Equality Act. Croydon’s planners should be all over this, insisting on the inclusion of step-free access to worship areas, accessible toilets and adequate emergency escape routes.
In the planning application, the church says it wants to be able to stage all-night vigils, yet the application pack has no fire strategy or any input from a fire engineer. The upper floor has two fire escapes and just a basic alarm.
When the roof of one of Dunamis International’s churches in Nigeria collapsed, several members of the congregation were seriously injured and one, the priest, killed. Planning control in Croydon is there to try to prevent such tragedies.
The application also fails to demonstrate how the worship centre will be protected from noise from the pub downstairs, or how the existing pub will be safeguarded from future complaints. There’s a serious risk that the worship centre could undermine the viability of an established local business.
The planning application has been described as “pretty poor”.
And as another resident observed: “Croydon has far too many vacant buildings already – surely they could find another for their place of worship in a more suitable location, and put that building to good use?”
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What do they need a car park for? For those gullible enough to believe in all that biblical tosh, christianity is all about suffering, so they should walk to church, not drive and expect to park outside.
Give up thy car and walk
I wonder what the Pastor makes from the church?
Simple arithmetic suggests that, from the “Glory Dome” alone, if every attendee put the Nigerian equivalent of £1 on the collection tray, they’d be looking at generating more than £5million a year even if they held just a single service each week.
Just as an aside, Black christian churches seem to be flourishing. They are NOT all Pentecostal like this Dunamis outfit. I met the warden of a Nigerian C of E church a while ago and they are doing just fine. There’s a Nigerian Chaplaincy set up to link with the C of E. This ‘Glory Dome’ set up however doesn’t look like the sort of place I’d worship.