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end churchianity blog
UK News

GOD TV withdraw from building plans in Plymouth due to 'spiralling costs'

by Cara Bentley

The UK religious broadcasting channel is based in Plymouth but reaches audiences in Israel, India and America with coverage of festivals like Soul Survivor and preaching by speakers from a variety of church backgrounds. 

In 2013, GOD TV secured a 25-year lease on the old cinema building but on Saturday they announced they were pulling out of the plans. 

They had permission form the council to spend £7 million turning it into a state-of-the-art events hub called the 'Revival Prayer Centre'. 

The church, which started in 1995, said they would raise the funds to transform the former Millennium nightclub on Union Street in the city into a conference centre

The organisation now say they are pulling out because of costs, something a blog cast scepticism on back in 2015. 

The author wrote: "It's not unheard of for professing Christians to donate money to a "church-building fund" for years, even decades, and the building still isn't paid off and the project never comes to fruition."

The channel told local paper, the Plymouth Herald, in 2016 that God would "open the right doors and provide the finances to complete this monumental project, in His time frame".

This video from 2015 shows what they intended the conference centre to look like:

However, in a statement this week, CEO Ward Simpson said: "We had high hopes for the project and for the benefits it could bring to Plymouth, but spiralling costs have caused us to review our plans and priorities."

The building had a monthly rent of £40,000, set to increase to £50,000, Simpson said they had already spent large sums of money on the building and that 35 million would be required if they were to finish it. 

Simpson added: "You can set out a journey in good faith, but if circumstances and priorities change, then your course has to change too. We simply could not justify spending more, or asking our supporters for more money."

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