Planning
Brethren Planning Applications — The UK Building Programme
17 planning applications for new meeting rooms across the UK in 18 months from a group with 18,000 members. Each application claims growing local membership. The evidence tells a different story — and the connections between applicants, gospel trusts and local politicians raise serious questions.
Source Open & Candid / Brethren Exposed
Published April 2024
Category Planning
Read time 16 min
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Planning applications in the UK are handled by individual local councils. This means that if you are a planning officer or local councillor, you are unlikely to be aware of a coordinated surge of applications across the country by a single group — and even less likely to be familiar with that group's background, tactics and public relations strategy.
The Plymouth Brethren Christian Church, with approximately 18,000 members in the UK, is one of the country's most prolific religious developers. In the last 18 months alone, 17 planning applications for new meeting rooms have been identified — varying in capacity from 50 to 2,000 people. To put that in context: it would be the equivalent of the town of Hythe in Kent receiving 17 new church planning applications in 18 months. Hythe has 18 churches within a 3-mile radius.
The Brethren population in the UK is comparable in size to the Scottish towns of Penicuik or Grangemouth, the Welsh towns of Aberystwyth or Porthcawl, or the English towns of Marlow, Penzance, Penrith, Petersfield, Stone or Matlock. Almost every single application cites growing local membership as its justification. Our data shows a 9% increase in UK membership over nine years — approximately 15 additional people per community.
Every planning application cites growing membership. Yet over 99% of Brethren members are born into the church. You cannot simply join. The membership growth claim, repeated across 17 applications to 17 separate planning authorities, does not withstand scrutiny.
Open & Candid
Cases
An application to build a care home for 60 Brethren members and a meeting room with a 50-person capacity on farmland at West Moors, north of Bournemouth. Developer: Brethren member Nick Aris, also a trustee of the Sandbourne Gospel Hall Trust. In the year to April 2022, the same trust had donated two existing meeting rooms — valued at £300,000 and £450,000 — to the Bournemouth Gospel Hall Trust. The Bournemouth/Poole community is estimated at 200–300 members, with 5 or 6 existing meeting rooms. The application attracted significant local opposition and was widely reported, including by the BBC. Refused 25 April 2024.
The Brethren have established a consultation website at lichfieldgospelhall.co.uk ahead of submitting a formal application — likely a response to the volume of local opposition generated by recent applications elsewhere. The proposed capacity suggests a large meeting room for 800–1,000 people. The consultation states the building will be accessible to the local community; the sign displayed on all Brethren meeting rooms suggests otherwise. The site is also described as accessible by public transport — despite Brethren members attending exclusively by car. According to former members, the main local communities are in Sutton Coldfield and Stafford, meaning members would travel to Lichfield regardless.
Aberdeenshire Council approved an application for a new meeting room in Ellon, situated between a Tesco and the local recycling centre. Capacity: approximately 90. Applicant: Tim White on behalf of the Jesmond Gospel Trust. The Aberdeen community numbers approximately 125 people, the majority located 10 miles south of Ellon, with existing rooms at Belhevie and a large hall (800+ capacity) at Balmedie. The Ellon location is therefore geographically difficult to justify on local need grounds. Notably, shortly before the application was approved, two RRT representatives — one of them Tim White's son — met with Ellon MSP Gillian Martin.
A planning application to convert a 90-year-old bowling green into a new meeting room, car park and house was approved — despite an impassioned campaign to save the green, which had served 15,000 members across its lifetime. Applicant: the Holyhead Road Gospel Hall Trust. The Shrewsbury community stated a membership of approximately 150 in 2018. The new site at Ford will be their sixth meeting room in the area. Between the Bicton, Bowbrook and new Ford sites, there is capacity for over 600 people in an area of approximately 4 square miles. The application was submitted under the name "Holyhead Road Trust" — omitting the word "Gospel Hall".
The Long Reach Gospel Hall Trust applied to convert an existing meeting room at Otterden Quay Lane into 22 new homes — while simultaneously seeking permission to build a new meeting room at Orchard House nearby. Planning documents submitted to Medway Council claimed the local congregation had grown from 220 members in 1997 to 460 in 2022, with a projected membership of 550 by 2030. Former members and our own research suggest current membership is fewer than 200, possibly as low as 150. The trust has also spent close to £150,000 on legal fees in its most recent reported financial year.
A new small meeting room was approved in 2023 on the outskirts of South Cave — essentially in the middle of a field in the green belt. Parking for 12 cars; capacity for 50 members. The site has no practical access by foot or public transport. Planning documents mention the possibility of hosting "Pie Days" — events at which the hall would be open to non-Brethren members for food and refreshments. Former members consider this claim implausible for a green belt field location. It is also of note that multiple planning applications in the South Cave area have been submitted by the Hazell family, who own a property adjacent to the new meeting room.
An application by the Nunthorpe Gospel Trust to convert a residential property in the village of Seamer into a meeting room attracted 39 objections and 27 supporting comments — the majority of the latter from Brethren members. The total community is estimated at around 150 people. The application cites growing membership; the main meeting room in Nunthorpe is 10 minutes' drive away. Separately, the Nunthorpe Gospel Trust holds planning permission to build seven homes on the site of their existing Gypsy Lane meeting room. A council land sale to facilitate this relocation was controversial — the decision was referred back to full council over concerns about process, with Councillor Mieka Smiles among those questioning whether the community received fair value. The site sits within the jurisdiction of the South Tees Development Corporation. Local mayor Ben Houchen has visited and praised the business of Simon Evershed, a senior Brethren member involved in the application area.
Test Valley Borough Council approved the change of use of a two-bedroom bungalow — purchased for £475,000 in 2022 — into a meeting room. Romsey Town Council objected, with Councillor Ian Culley noting the potential impact on neighbours and the loss of a residential dwelling. The planning justification cited members moving from rural to urban locations; our sources suggest the opposite is occurring, with the local community gradually moving north from Southampton towards more rural areas.
The application — for a site purchased for
almost £1.2 million — is a 3-minute drive from the existing main meeting room on Hortham Lane, itself built within the last 15 years. The Gloucestershire Gazette's coverage included a supporting comment from a neighbour — who turns out, on a Companies House search, to be
Gareth Herbert, a Brethren member and former director of Novus Trading Ltd. A current director of Novus is Richard Smith, uncle of the planning applicant Glenn Smith. South Gloucestershire Council — which has documented prior connections to the Brethren community — approved the application. Several planning documents were not made available on the council's website.
South Gloucestershire Council stated: "The PBCC community is well established in the area and the network of smaller halls to meeting local households delivers sustainable objectives."
An application to extend the car park at the main Chesterfield meeting room to accommodate 95 cars. Planning documents stated the facility serves 600-plus members. Our estimate puts the local Brethren community at a maximum of 100 people. The car park extension would only realistically reach capacity during periodic large gatherings such as the 3-day meeting held in April 2024 — which draws members from far beyond the local area.
A planning application for change of use to car parking and vehicular access was granted in June 2022 at the former Bethany Chapel near Kerry. Once construction began, it became apparent the access road had been built over graves in the chapel graveyard, causing significant distress to the families of those buried there. The case received notable media coverage. The location — described by former members as off the beaten track for the local community — has raised questions about why this remote site was selected.
An application for a new meeting room on a greenfield site in Blunsdon was refused in February 2023. The application attracted numerous objections and, at the planning meeting, a number of discrepancies were highlighted in the supporting documentation.
The Wetherby Road Gospel Trust submitted an application to convert a former osteopaths' clinic on York Road into a new meeting room in 2023. The application has since been withdrawn.
A proposal to demolish Ivy Cottage — on the corner of Whitehouse Common Road and Tamworth Road — and build a new meeting room was withdrawn. The property has since been listed for sale on Rightmove at offers in excess of £1 million. The owner is Jim Clarke, a Brethren elder and owner of Allpack, one of the largest Brethren-owned companies in the UK (based in Cannock). The withdrawal is likely connected to the site's location on a busy junction and the concurrent Lichfield proposal.
The Pattern
Across all 14 cases investigated, several consistent features emerge: planning applications submitted to different local authorities using the same membership growth justification; gospel hall trust names submitted without the words "Gospel Hall" to reduce immediate identification; supporting comments from neighbours who turn out on inspection to be Brethren members; and applications for sites that, in terms of location and capacity, are difficult to justify on the stated grounds of local need.
Local planning authorities are by definition unaware of the broader pattern. Each sees one application from an unfamiliar religious group. None sees the 16 others being processed simultaneously elsewhere.
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