A FLOOD-HIT church is ready to reopen after vandals damaged roofing and provided a major setback to a regeneration project.

Congregation members at Haslingden Baptist Church have rallied around after heavy rains last October severely damaged floors and ceilings at the Bury Road building.

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Damage totalling around £40,000 was caused to the church, which was also due to have a new kitchen installed.

Work is now near completion on the roof and kitchen area – provided at cut-price by Bacup-based J and J Ormerod (JJO) – has been installed.

The church is home to not only a Tuesday luncheon club but a memory choir, Rainbows and Brownies and for church functions and church leaders hope it can be brought back into action.

Barbara Shaw, a deacon and church treasurer, said: “We hope that once everything is finished we will be able to let the building out more and having a proper kitchen will help.

“We had a legacy which helped to pay for the kitchen but we couldn’t start anything because of the flooding.”

The old kitchen had been assembled through generous donations down the years but was in need of an overhaul, which has included a vertical radiator being installed.

Kitchen fitter Darren Ball, of JJO, added: “It was in desperate need of rejuvenation. There was a lead heating pipe behind the units and space for it had been cut out. This left the edges exposed, took away some of the shelf space and weakened the units.

“We took the pipe out completely and now there is lots more storage space.”

“I really don’t know how they managed to use the kitchen they had for all the activities that go on in the building.”

Plans are in place for a celebration service at the church, at the corner of Warwick Street, on May 9, from 4pm.

The chapel on Bury Road is more than 115 years old and the congregation was first formed in 1842, when a room was hired above a blacksmith’s in Pickering Street by 15 workers.