A DISUSED Methodist church is set for a new lease of life after an application to develop it was given the green light.

Carlisle City Council has given the thumbs up to convert Cotehill Methodist Church, in Peter Gate, Colehill, into a home.

Council documents state the application was put in by Colchester based developer Geoff Davidson who applied to turn it into a one-bedroom house with an open plan living area.

According to the Methodist Church, North Cumbrian Circuit website the church closed on April 29, 2018 with a service that celebrated 150 years of Methodism in the village.

The building had been built in 1937 but used material from an earlier church on the site which dated from the 19th Century.

The website states: "Our first Methodist Church was built in 1868, the cost of £100 being met by local effort.

"The alabaster quarries were the chief local industry at the time, and the wages for a 58 hour week were sixteen shillings.

"The village shopkeeper Mrs Mary Turnbull persuaded her regular customers to subscribe a penny per week to the building fund and in this way subscribed a creditable amount towards the new buildings.

"Local farmers carted building materials voluntarily.

"Prior to 1868 there was neither a Parish Church nor a nonconformist church in Cotehill."

According to the council’s Recommendation Delegated Report: “The existing building would be converted to a single storey dwelling, a small rear projection would be demolished, otherwise the building is not intended to be significantly changed.

“Existing doors and walls are intended to be re-used. Replacement windows are intended although details of these have not been provided.

“The two rooms currently within the building, annotated as the main hall and classroom, would become an open-plan kitchen,lounge,dining room and a bedroom.

“It is intended to introduce a bathroom within the bedroom, which would occupy the eastern end of the building.”

"The submissions do not identify any changes to existing curtilage, layout, access or boundaries.

"The application is being considered on the basis that these elements would remain as they are now."

The former church was given permission to convert to a home on Tuesday, February 25.