Work is due to begin on the grounds at Christ Church this month.
I’ve written that sentence a few times now in press releases, emails and social media posts, but I don’t think I’ve really stopped to reflect on what it means.
Rossendale Digital CIC has secured a funding package worth more than £30,000 for the next phase of work at the Bacup Campus at Christ Church in Bacup.
The package combines grant funding from Lancashire Environmental Fund with match funding from Rossendale Digital CIC. It will pay for a new accessible entrance from Keswick Road, an access ramp, resurfaced paths and the first proper stage of landscaping around Christ Church.
That might not sound like the most exciting phase of a digital hub.
There are no podcast studios being unveiled this month. Nobody is cutting a ribbon on a shiny bank of computers. There won’t be a robot wandering around the church making brews. Not yet, anyway.
But this is a really important step.
One of the things I’m increasingly conscious of is the language we use when talking about Christ Church. We often say the digital hub is “being developed” there. That is true, but it can also give the impression that Rossendale Digital Hub is still an idea on a drawing board.
It isn’t.
Christ Church already functions as Rossendale’s digital hub. GrowTraffic is the anchor tenant and parts of the Bacup Campus are already occupied and in use. Businesses work from here. Meetings happen here. People visit the building and activity is beginning to form around it.
The development bit is going to continue for years. It’s a bloody big building!
Christ Church is a large building constructed in the 1850s. We were never going to buy it, wave a magic restoration wand and reveal the finished thing six months later.
If I’m being honest, I don’t think there will ever be a moment when somebody declares Christ Church is completely finished. There will always be another room to improve, another facility to introduce or another part of the building that could be made more useful.
That is probably how it should be.
The hub is already here. As was always the plan, we are now making it better, one achievable phase at a time.
The Grounds Have Always Bothered Me
The grounds are one of those things I have learned to look past.
When you spend a lot of time at a place, you become accustomed to its rough edges. You know which path is awkward, where the ground becomes slippery and which entrance needs explaining to a first-time visitor.
Then somebody new arrives and you suddenly see it through their eyes again.
Christ Church is a remarkable building, but the approach does not yet give people the sense that they are arriving at an active digital campus.
More importantly, access is not good enough.
If we are serious about creating a place for businesses, learners, community organisations and local people, it needs to be a place people can actually enter safely and comfortably.
Accessibility is not a finishing touch to be added once all the interesting work has been done. It is part of the basic infrastructure.
The new route from Keswick Road, the ramp and improved paths will make a practical difference to the people already using the campus.
They will also make Christ Church feel more connected to Bacup.
I’m Grateful That Other People Can See The Vision
Projects like this can sometimes feel as though they exist mainly in your own head.
You spend years talking about what a building could become. You explain the idea to planners, funders, contractors, businesses and anyone else willing to listen.
Some people understand it immediately.
Others give you the look people reserve for somebody who has bought an enormous old church and announced plans to turn it into a digital hub.
Which, in fairness, is not an entirely unreasonable reaction.
That is why external support matters.
When we put the offer in for Christ Church to create a centre for digitally orientated businesses, we had an idea about how we would fund it. We had several hundred thousand pounds in the bank. But this is the kind of building that can consume millions!
I’m grateful to Lancashire Environmental Fund for backing this phase and recognising that improving the grounds is about much more than making the site look tidier.
It is about access to an important local building. It is about creating an external community space. It is about supporting the next stage of a project that combines heritage, business, skills and community use.
I’m also grateful to the team at Helmrig, who have been working through how the plans can be delivered practically.
There is always a gap between a nice-looking plan and what can actually be achieved once people start dealing with levels, drainage, trees, surfaces, costs and all the other details that do not appear in the early vision.
Turning an ambition into a deliverable programme takes people who understand the ground in front of them. Quite literally, in this case.
And I’m grateful to everybody who has helped keep Rossendale Digital CIC moving forward, after I stepped back.
Large community projects do not progress because one person has a good idea. They progress because different people contribute time, expertise, credibility, money and patience at different stages.
There has been plenty of patience involved.
Why GrowTraffic Is The Anchor Tenant
GrowTraffic is the anchor tenant at Christ Church because we believe in what the building can become.
We also believe Rossendale should have a visible home for its digital economy.
There are more people working in digital and technology roles across the valley than many probably realise. There are agencies, developers, freelancers, creatives and people working remotely for businesses based all over the country.
What Rossendale had lacked is a centre of gravity for that activity.
Manchester has built a powerful digital ecosystem, but the answer cannot be for every ambitious person in Rossendale to travel out of the valley or eventually move away.
We need places here where people can work, meet, learn and encounter others doing similar things.
That is what places like Christ Church can provide.
GrowTraffic’s role as anchor tenant helps make the campus operational now. We bring our team, clients, meetings and everyday business activity into the building.
In return, we get to work from somewhere with considerably more meaning than a generic office unit.
We are not simply renting some desks. We are helping establish a place that should support other businesses and create opportunities long after the current phase of work is complete.
I don’t take that lightly.
The Outside Space Matters As Well
Part of the funding will begin the transformation of the grounds into an external community space.
The first phase will include some seating, planting and landscaping, but it will not create the finished garden in one go.
Again, this will develop over time.
I like the idea of people being able to step outside between meetings, sit somewhere pleasant or have an informal conversation away from a screen.
Digital work can be mentally intensive. Most of us spend far too much time sitting down and staring at things that glow.
Having some greenery and a usable outside space is not a luxury. It contributes to the kind of working environment we want to create.
But the grounds should not feel as though they belong only to the businesses based at the campus.
Christ Church was a community building for more than a century and a half. Its new purpose needs to preserve that connection.
The planning permission includes community use and an external community space for precisely that reason.
The building’s future may be digital, but it should still feel rooted in Bacup.
The Next Steps
The immediate next step is straightforward: get the work started and delivered properly.
Once the new access, ramp and paths are in place, people should be able to see a clear physical change at the campus.
After that, we continue.
There will be further work to the grounds. There are more parts of Christ Church to bring into use. We want to develop the meeting, coworking, learning and creative facilities. The podcasting and photography facilities remain part of the bigger vision.
We also need to keep building the activity around the building.
A digital hub is not created by putting the words “digital hub” on a sign.
It becomes a hub when people use it, when businesses form relationships through it, when learners gain skills there and when opportunities begin to emerge because the place exists.
The building gives us the infrastructure.
The people will make it work.
A Visible Step Forward
I have been involved with the idea of creating a home for Rossendale’s digital and technology community since before 2019. At various points, progress has felt quick. At others, it has felt glacial. There have been mistakes and confusion.
That is the nature of projects involving old buildings, planning, funding and multiple organisations. Nothing happens in a perfectly straight line and almost everything takes longer than you first imagine.
But it does move.
This month, it will move again.
The work on the grounds will make Christ Church safer, more accessible and more welcoming. It will improve the environment for the GrowTraffic team and the other people and organisations using the campus.
It will also make the wider vision a little easier for people to see.
I’m grateful that Lancashire Environmental Fund has helped make this phase possible. I’m grateful to Rossendale Digital CIC for continuing to push the project forward and I’m grateful to everybody who has supported Christ Church’s transition from a former place of worship into a building with a new role in Rossendale.
There is still an enormous amount to do.
But Rossendale Digital Hub is no longer something we are waiting to create.
It is here. It is active. And, one phase at a time, it is becoming the place we always hoped it could be.
Read more about the work beginning at Rossendale digital hub.