Hell on wheels -- Church says cycle lane causing weeping and gnashing of teeth
Story here.
Church website here: St. Margaret's Church, Altrincham.
Looking at the church via the satellite view, it seems as if the single entrance via Gorsey Lane wasn't ideal to begin with, and even though I have zero expertise in urban planning it does appear as if cutting access direct to the drive that encircles the church from Dunham Road may be problematic since two other roads intersect Dunham Road right there. The Vicar says that bewildered parishioners are "getting lost." Attendance (weekly?) has dropped for 100 to 60.
"And when the Lamb opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature say, “Come!”
Then I looked and saw a black Cannondale bicycle, and its rider held in his hand a bottle of liquid carbohydrates. And I heard what sounded like a voice from among the four living creatures, saying, “A plate of pasta for a denarius, a and three pints of lager for a denarius, and do not harm the chain lube and tires.” --2 Velosians 5-6
St. Wiggins, hear our prayer!
Kidding aside, what's this poor place to do?
Church website here: St. Margaret's Church, Altrincham.
Looking at the church via the satellite view, it seems as if the single entrance via Gorsey Lane wasn't ideal to begin with, and even though I have zero expertise in urban planning it does appear as if cutting access direct to the drive that encircles the church from Dunham Road may be problematic since two other roads intersect Dunham Road right there. The Vicar says that bewildered parishioners are "getting lost." Attendance (weekly?) has dropped for 100 to 60.
"And when the Lamb opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature say, “Come!”
Then I looked and saw a black Cannondale bicycle, and its rider held in his hand a bottle of liquid carbohydrates. And I heard what sounded like a voice from among the four living creatures, saying, “A plate of pasta for a denarius, a and three pints of lager for a denarius, and do not harm the chain lube and tires.” --2 Velosians 5-6
St. Wiggins, hear our prayer!
Kidding aside, what's this poor place to do?
Comments
There are plenty of churches and other community buildings that have idiosyncratic access routes - my church is at the end of a road, which from one direction had you driving on the main road past the church (which at that point is on top of a hill to the left) and then coming back along the parallel residential street (an additional half mile from the point you pass the church); and if you enter the name of the church (rather than be given the correct post code for the front door) you may be directed through a sheltered housing complex to the back of the church and have to walk around the building to get in. But that complex route has been the case since the church was built, not that it makes telling anyone without access to a sat nav how to get there any easier.
But good post, @The_Riv.
Looking at the map, I see an awful lot of houses within walking distance of the church. Why not reach out?
Although if you go to the Manchester Evening News article linked on the church website you get a slightly more extended version of the quote:
Via: https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/bee-network-change-outside-church-31329222
"Rev Murray said: “Prior to Covid we were getting between 80 and 100 people in the congregation, but since then and since the road closure it’s down to about 60. The traffic restriction is driving people away from the church."
I can imagine the parking/one way situation doesn't help, but a lot of things have changed over Covid and a lot of churches have seen their attendance patterns change.
I have vague memories of reading about this some time ago, so I suspect there were complaints made at the time.
https://road.cc/content/news/vicar-fears-cycle-lane-outside-church-puts-it-under-threat-306021
More generally, it's almost impossible to make significant changes to roads without making someone's life worse. In this case, people attending St Margaret's have lost the ability to turn off the main road and drive straight to the church. That's clearly worse. They have to turn off one road earlier or later and wiggle round the back instead - clearly worse, but it hardly seems like an insurmountable challenge.
The conversion of Gorsey Ln to one-way, and the addition of a cycle lane clearly have good intentions. Whether those intentions are actually successful is a different question.
Here, by the way, is a link to the story of the teenage girl who was campaigning for a safer crossing for her school, which is about a 10 minute walk south of St Margaret's, and some fraction of its pupils cross this main road by the church on their way to and from.
https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/13-year-old-who-took-27706449
"Make traffic safer in a place where a school full of kids walk" seems like a pretty good reason, on the face of it.
Well, I'd rather real ale, but a decent Pilsner would do during the summer months.
I am nothing if not eirenic ... 😉
This thought occurred to me -- a "cycle to church" or "hike to church" event might see some new or different people walk or ride in for an introduction or more. I dunno.
I enjoy ale, too, @Gamma Gamaliel, and have also been known to down an oatmeal stout on occasion. I'm pretty open-palleted, with the exception of IPAs.
The older and more traditional ones are more palatable but are all too rare. Give me a standard British bitter and I'm happy.
Oatmeal stout, and stout in general is fine in winter.
But this is a digression...
An old joke which may not cross the Pond very well ...
The M62 (a freeway ? in the North of England) goes into a bar.
'I'm dead hard, me,' he says intimidatingly. 'I've got 4 lanes and 2 hard-shoulders and run right across t'north of England from Hull to Liverpool!'
Just then, the M1 folds itself in through the door. 'You're not as hard as I am. I've got 6 lanes, 2 hard shoulders and I run almost the entire length of England, from London to Leeds ...'
While they square up to each other a thin pink tarmac strip slithers into the room and both Motorways scream in terror and make for the door.
'You've got to watch him!' the M1 exclaims. 'He's a real cycle-path!'
For context, I'm an American who uses a bicycle to get around and you get so much of the same crap from American business owners whenever bicycle infrastructure gets installed.
And it kinda weirds me out that we're so car-obsessed that they don't think that "increased pedestrian traffic" doesn't create opportunities for outreach.
Then again, I also know churches in the city where, thanks to demographic trends, most of the actual members live miles away from the church. It's an interesting thing, and I wonder if some of that is going on here. Maybe the church's local heyday was a generation ago and now they don't even know any of their actual neighbors.
I think the problem with all dying churches is they have not reached out into their communities. It is very hard for churches to reach out to younger families once the median age of the congregation reaches into the 50s. However, it is not impossible. I would ask what strengths the referenced congregation has to meet the current needs of the neighborhood and then go from there.
I might balk at the problem, but what you describe is definitely a big problem. And kind of near my neighborhood, I can think of one case where a fellow seminarian of mine was leading a church and told me point blank that what had been a thriving immigrant church was in a steady decline because they refused to reach out to the new folks that moved into the neighborhood after it gentrified. And that's a shame.
I think they closed their doors for good a few years ago.
All neck-beards, mountain bikes, independent coffee houses and craft beer.
Is that a fair perception?
All of them? Really? My response to this is in Hell.
I had a look at their website; and it included a number of sections that seemed to promise activity for younger congregants, except that under 'Mother and Toddler' we have:
"WE ARE HOPING TO RE ESTABLISH OUR MOTHER AND TODDLER GROUP, WHICH RAN ON A FRIDAY MORNING PRIOR TO COVID"
and Sunday School:
"WE WOULD LIKE TO RE ESTABLISH OUR SUNDAY SCHOOL"
Both of which - to me - seem to indicate problems stemming from Covid and the associated loss of a cohort or two meaning the church (now) struggles to staff some activities, confirming the impression I got from the MEN article above.
A parent and toddler group could be independent of the worshipping community, the first question to be asked is whether there's a lack of provision for such groups in the area. If all the parents in the area are going to other groups and don't want another group to go to then it's not going to happen. If the community is getting older and the number of families with toddlers is decreasing then there may be little demand for additional groups. It's been a long time since my children were that age, but the groups we used were mostly recommended by other parents who were already going there, especially those we were friends with (they're primarily places for parents to chat while children play, so having friends there is important). If a group shuts down for 2-3 years then the parents who used it previously are less likely to need it (their children have grown up and attend school, and if they don't have younger children then that's part of their past) and the core group to re-establish the group has gone.
The question those statements raise is whether the church is seeking to meet the needs of their community as it currently is, or just keep on doing what they did to meet the needs of (part of) the community 5 years ago? If the community has changed enough then just keeping on doing the same thing isn't going to work.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/census/maps/choropleth?msoa=E02001282
It's from 2021, but I'd doubt if the composition varies that much. The population looks like a good mix of all ages with relatively high levels of education, so there should be plenty of young families / families with kids within their catchment:
https://www.ons.gov.uk/census/maps/choropleth/population/age/resident-age-3a/aged-65-years-and-over?msoa=E02001282
But, as the access to this church from Gorsey Lane hasn't changed, all that's happened is that Gorsey Lane is now one way, that wouldn't appear to be a significant difference (leaving the church by turning onto a one way street may even be safer). If changes to infrastructure had added half a mile to people walking or cycling to church then that could be a barrier to access, an extra half mile for someone in motorised transport is barely noticeable.
https://survivingchurch.org/2025/04/07/the-church-of-england-in-secular-cycles-a-case-of-corporate-long-covid/
I see churches struggle for both reasons. The church that tries to do more community* than worship is having serious money troubles but is still worshiping successfully. Most of the churches I know that worship God but don't serve their community, either with the good news or with anything else are already closed or will be soon. So I think isolating oneself from God's people is very dangerous.
*They see it as serving the people God sent them to serve
Continuing from that thought, I sometimes like to remind people that the great comission does not stop at "holy spirit." And of course teaching people to be a servant not a lord means we'll have to do it too.
Certainly, and these are all good points. The trouble for me is that figuring out exactly what Jesus sends us (my particular congregation(s)) to do takes a helluva lot of thinking. I'd say we tend to be more on the overdoing-public-service side, though we're attempting to rein it in. But you can go wrong in either direction.
Certainly. I tend liberal myself, but I'm also aware of churches that turn into what I'd call "glorified social service agencies," and there are hazards to that.
On the other hand, if you're not doing something for the people around you, what are you doing? Even if it's considered a mission, certainly in secular US, it's hard to get people to show up just to get preached at and fed communion. I think people like to see a community that's active.
I do think that God's call has to be tied into that, and discerning that...yep, that is not an easy question. Each one has its own particular place.