By Bridget Spinks
THE building of a new Catholic church in Ellenbrook is set to get under way this year after the Edgar Idle Wade design was finalised in mid-December last year and tender closed on 17 December.
“We have the tender results and now we’re discussing them and finalising
them,” Fr Francis Huy Nguyen, Ellenbrook parish priest of six years,
told The Record.
The church, named St Helena of the Holy Cross by Archbishop Barry
Hickey, has been in the planning stage for nearly three years.
The church will be built on the same site as Holy Cross College, on the
corner of Coolamon Boulevard and Strathmore Parkway, and will have a
seating capacity of 300 with an overflow capacity of 150.
Fr Francis said a parish building committee, working with Edgar Idle
Wade Architect Philip Idle and assistant Femke Woston, had quite a big
say in what sort of church it will be.
While there won’t be a parish centre, there will be a space for social
gatherings outside the church area and a small kitchen for morning teas,
Fr Francis said.
Without a church in which to celebrate Mass, Fr Francis has been
celebrating Mass in St Helena’s Catholic Primary School in the
undercroft.
To finance the church construction, the parish has a loan from the Perth
Archdiocese through the Catholic Development Fund and is working out a
repayment scheme. But the parish has also been fundraising with raffles,
the buy-a-brick programme and fairs.