Plans to demolish a Raynes Park church and build a bigger one in its place have been given the final tick of approval.

According to documents attached to a planning application for the site in Kingston Road, Dundonald Church had become "overcrowded in particular for children’s and youth work as well as the various groups that meet both in Sundays and mid week."

In an effort to alleviate that problem, plans were submitted last year that would demolish the site and build a part-five, part-three storey house of worship in its place.

But in order to cover some of the costs associated with the development, the erection of 15 flats on the top three storeys of the the building were also part of the plans.

This left the the bottom two storeys for the church.

These plans were approved last year with the final go-ahead only being granted earlier this month.

Dundonald ward Councillor David Dean said it was good to see an integral part of the community thrive, but did raise some concerns regarding parking in the area.

"The church are a strong part of the community and keep growing," he said.

"They showed their first plans to residents and Conservative councillors and they listened to the objections. 

"The height of the building was an issue, but probably because the next door site received planning consent to go higher, Merton Council were minded to grant permission. 

"The continual problem in the area is lack of parking and this larger church will likely exacerbate that.

Time for more parking space or a car park in Raynes Park or less overdevelopment.”

Senior Pastor Richard Coekin said that the lack of parking spaces associated with the flats was in line with council policy because it is in within a CPZ and close to public transport services. 

He also estimates the church population using the building will be the same as at present.

"We were delighted to take on board the feedback from local residents and councillors as we prepared the proposals for our new church building," he said.

"We love being part of the Raynes Park community and hope that local residents will be able to benefit from the new building in future; indeed, we have been encouraging our members and visitors to park only on the church side of Kingston Road and we have taken steps in recent months to reduce the number of cars parking on a Sunday – members are increasingly walking, hopping on bikes and sharing lifts (we have even had a 'car free Sunday' to encourage this).

"Most of our membership are local and we care very much about being a church that serves our community."