A NEW chapter awaits for the members of the United Church Synod in Trowbridge as they officially opened their offices a few streets away from their old church which was deemed to expensive to keep.

The congregation, who now hold their services at the Park Club, opened their office and meeting rooms at Beaufort Mansion in Stallard Street last Thursday.

"We did not have enough money to pay for the facilities we had, so we had no choice but to leave the church as the heating would have cost us £100,000 to replace alone," Alison Hicks, one of the elders said. "We are really excited about this though. Every meeting used to be about the building and the money and now the church is about the people."

Since making the decision to stay together as a religious community, their worship day and office and group space have both been moved to smaller locations in the hope of creating a warm and inviting atmosphere.

Church secretary Clive Jackson said: "We had much too much space before and this is a new beginning. It is sad for us in the sense that the church was a lovely building but the upkeep was just too expensive and in November 2015, we took the decision that we wanted to stay together as a worshipping community and to look for other premises.

"The only other option was to run it into the ground so we could not use it anymore. We found the Park Club and have been worshipping there since May and it has been so well received. The only problem we had was that we had no official office space. It did not give us the base we needed to operate and for our groups so we found this building."

The office will now provide the foundation for the organisers and the many church community groups who need a space to use.

Mr Jackson added: "We got very low at one point and some people have been pushing us all the way through. Alison has been quite a drive to get us through to this and we are very excited. It is a brand new start for us and we are looking forward to it and so are the congregation."