Your Safety Matters

St Richard’s has used the quieter time of no or restricted services because of Covid-19 to improve its access and egress for all

With the help of a Commonwealth grant, we have provided a permanent concrete ramp with handrails and tactiles for emergency exit from the sanctuary for people with mobility impairments. With new signage and lighting, this new exit is a big improvement for church users with access requirements.

Also, to prevent trips, we have recently installed new shiny tactile dots at the front of the sanctuary to avoid people tripping on the front step. We believe it will be helpful to priests, wardens and worshippers as they move between those two levels.

With no church services for a very long few months, the community rose to the opportunity to do a project together to celebrate being back. A tapestry project which involved 16 people stitching a cross of their design and colour, has been sewn together and mounted as an altar frontal for the Patronal Festival for St Richard of Chichester. With four weekly workshops for participants, it turned into a happy time of doing a creative stitching project together and catching up with old friends and new.

The community tapestry was blessed by Bishop Denise Ferguson.