THE car park at the Catholic Cathedral of St Michael and St John will become a one-way thoroughfare with an entrance off William Street as part of the final stage of six-year, $6.1 million restoration of the building.
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And the solid brick fence surrounding the cathedral will be removed to create a welcoming space outside the church where people can sit and watch the world go by.
The Catholic Diocese of Bathurst has lodged a final development application with Bathurst Regional Council to complete the cathedral’s interior restoration and carry out external landscaping works.
The redevelopment will also see a new main entrance built so parishioners can gain access to the cathedral directly from the car park through what is currently the cathedral gift store.
A pergola with an octagon roof will be built outside the new main doors to provide shelter from the weather and level access will be provided for less mobile parishioners.
Dean of the cathedral Father Paul Devitt said the external changes were designed to better connect the heritage-listed church with the Bathurst community.
“The existing main entrance [off William Street] will be replaced with some ornate glass doors that we will rarely use but they will let a lot more light into the front of the cathedral,” Father Paul said.
“It can be quite gloomy in the front of the cathedral, even in the middle of the day, but the glass doors will create a subconscious link between the cathedral and the community by drawing the outside in.
“We will then bust through the gift shop and make that the main entrance way.”
The car park will also be redesigned to improve safety and traffic flow.
A new entrance to the car park will be built off William Street and there will be one-way movement of cars within the grounds of the cathedral.
All traffic will leave the cathedral onto Keppel Street.
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Work to restore the cathedral started in 2013 and the project was originally expected to take four years and cost $3 million.
However, the discovery of significant rising damp issues beneath the cathedral added a new complexity to the project, pushing out the timeframe and putting new pressure on the budget.
But Father Paul said the diocese had reviewed the progress at the end of each stage to ensure there was enough money to keep going.
“That’s why we have done separate DAs along the way, to ensure we’ve been within budget and able to keep going,” he said.
The state government contributed $150,000 to the restoration in 2013 but the majority of the capital has been raised through separate loans taken out by the Bathurst diocese and local parish, along with a concerted community fundraising campaign.
The diocese is aiming to have the restoration completed by March 2019.
“That might be wishful thinking but we need an end point,” Father Paul said.
