A CHURCH congregation is moving to a new home which it hopes will “serve the community” of Weymouth.

Following the finalising of long-awaited negotiations Weymouth Family Church is all set to relocate to Bethany Hall, Westham Road.

Since the church was established in 2002 it has yet to find a permanent home, first meeting for many years in Conifers School, and more recently in Cineworld Weymouth.

After almost a year of negotiations and securing finance, the church community has purchased the building on Westham Road and plans to start meeting there as of next month.

Church elder Mick Richardson said: "As a church community we're grateful to God for leading us through this project. The congregation has also dug deep into its pockets to raise much of the finance.

"We're delighted that the former trustees of the building chose to sell it to a church rather than to developers, so that the work of the gospel can continue."

Weymouth Family Church belongs to the wider Newfrontiers family of churches and aims to demonstrate God’s values through outreach work in the local community and beyond.

It participates in a growing number of activities including running a regular soup kitchen and its involvement with the Street Pastors- an outlook the congregation hope to instil at their new home.

Church elder Steve Hunter said: "We're excited about the ways that we can make use of a building like Bethany Hall. We'll use it for our Sunday church meetings, of course, but we want to find all sorts of ways in the days and months ahead, to make it a place that serves the community. We want it to be a building that is used regularly by many in this community."

The church plans to hold an official public opening and celebration in the near future. For further information visit weymouthfamilychurch.org.uk.