Former Wigan bank set to become church, food bank and community centre

Wigan’s planning team has approved The Redeemed Christian Church of God’s (RCCG) bid create a two office spaces, a food bank, youth classroom and toilets to the ground floor.

Also included will be a large hall area on the upper two floors as well as an office space, changing rooms, toilet and pastoral office.

There will be no external alterations to the building which is the Leigh Town Centre Conservation Area.

The submission by architect Pegasus Group on behalf of the RCCG said: “Keeping buildings in active use is also a benefit to the conservation area as a whole, as active buildings are less likely to result in decline.”

Access to the building will be via the same entrance as the former bank – from the junction of Railway Road and King Street.

The development will also include cycle storage to be accessed from the rear of the property.

Permission is for the building to be used from 10am to 8.30pm from Monday to Saturday and from 10am to 1pm on Sundays and bank holidays.

Barclays closed the branch on September 9 2022 citing the fall in customer transactions as the reason.

“Some 88 per cent of our branch customers use other ways to do banking, such as online or by telephone,” the bank told its customers.

“We’ve identified that only 142 customers use this branch exclusively for their banking.”