Project Discovery: Next Steps

I have worked on major projects in several iconic buildings over the years including 10 Downing Street, Wembley Stadium and the London Stock Exchange, and so I was delighted when the Dean asked me to help him with Chester Cathedral’s own major project, known as Project Discovery.

The Cathedral is iconic, spiritual, historic and special in so many ways. It is very close to my heart, not least because I saw my wife, Georgina, ordained there as a Deacon in 2012, and as a Priest in 2013. I joined the Cathedral Council subsequently and became a member of the newly constituted Chapter in 2023.

Project Discovery aims to transform the building 30 St Werburgh Street, known to many as the former Kings School and Barclays bank, to increase visibility of the Cathedral, expand its cultural offer and help connect further with city communities. This is a major undertaking involving millions of pounds over several years.

As a project team we are applying the best lessons from project management generally, using a commonly used method know as PRINCE (Projects in a Controlled Environment). One of those lessons is best remembered through the nemonic Time SQuaRe - which encapsulated the trade-offs between the Timeframe of a project, its Scope, the Quality to which the work is undertaken and the Resources (both financial and people) available. Too many projects fail because the timeframe is rushed or never ending, the scope is too big and/or keeps increasing, the work is done to a “gold plated” quality when “good enough” will do, and there is a rose tinted approach to budgets and human resources.

So applying that lesson to Discovery we have broken the project up into three main phases. The first involves moving the Cathedral staff into new offices in 30 Werburgh Street, early in 2025 after the hectic period running up to Christmas and before Easter gets busy. Taking advantage of the early fundraising already achieved and utilising space previously used by bank staff, we believe this is both realistic and will bring the building back into use less than a year after it was vacated.

The second phase, which we are calling Revive, will refresh the whole building and allow things such as a volunteer hub to be established, as well as introduce some community engagement events. This requires external funding but is a discrete effort which will follow the staff move and run throughout 2025 and into early 2026.

Finally, the main Discovery effort, which will see a transformation of the building and a new entrance to the Cathedral. This is a much bigger undertaking which requires significant fundraising, but with time to do this, and the confidence which will be given to funders from the early phases, we believe this can be achieved from 2026 through 2028. At which point the Cathedral and the City of Chester will benefit alike from more visitors, better local engagement and tangible benefits to the community.