A new church and community centre in Dawlish held its very first service at the weekend.

Hope Church, a 'replant' of local Christian group Dawlish Christian Fellowship, met for the first time in the Hope Centre building on Sunday 29 May.

The £1.77m centre has been under construction since December 2019. It is not completely finished, but it is hoped that it can open more formally and offer its spaces out to the community in the autumn.

It has a large auditorium, café, and multipurpose rooms across two floors. Members of the community will be able to hire the spaces for Christian and non-religious activities.

Guy Huggins of the church's senior leadership team (there is no single pastor) said during the service: "It's our absolute privilege and honour to say: Welcome to Hope Church!

"A massive thank you to everyone who's been involved in making this possible. I know we've got loads of visitors today, we've got people who've worked on the building, almost from start to finish, which is just incredible, so thank you to you, but thank you to God."

Inside the auditorium (Nub News, Will Goddard)

Where is the Hope Centre?

The Hope Centre can be found near Sainsbury's next to the roundabout on Exeter Road, and here on Google Maps. 

Click here to view Hope Church's website.