Jack Tomkins (right) who will be running the cafe

A CUTTING-EDGE building overlooking Highbury Fields will emerge from the scaffolding this weekend.

Highbury Grove’s Christ Church will proudly unveil a new community centre on Easter Sunday. Seven years in the making, the hub is at last set to open its doors to guests this Easter Sunday.

Vicar Andy Chrich, along with Associate Vicar Tania Witter and Verity Baldry of the Community Centre Committee will be on hand to welcome church members and curious visitors to the site from 4pm.

Plans for a new space were first dreamed up over a decade ago, because the church offices are currently located in a “really inaccessible” basement, Ms Baldry said.

Along with accessible church offices, the single-storey building holds a café, toilets and a shower room – “which will help with our work with homeless people”, Ms Baldry said – and a large meeting room that can be divided into two smaller soundproofed spaces.

The new building is bright and airy with floor-to-ceiling windows looking out over Highbury Fields, extensive storage space, underfloor heating and soundproofing features.

Minimising the environmental impact of the building was “central” throughout the planning and building process, Ms Baldry said. “The environmental footprint of this building is very low,” she said, with a grass roof and air source heat pump.

The new space will run on a “third-third-third model,” used by the church a third of the time, by community groups a third of the time, and commercial interests the final third of the time.

“The commercial third pays for it all,” Ms Baldry said.

Revd Chrich said: “It feels to me very hopeful to be opening now, after the last couple of years that everyone’s had. It feels like a real achievement that this building has been constructed through everything going on. And to open on Easter day just feels like a sign of hope and new life.”