CHURCHGOERS have raised £800,000 in 18 months to provide community facilities at their landmark building.

Dorchester's Dorford Baptist Church, which has stood at the Top o' Town for 91 years, is set to be pulled down leaving just the two walls facing on to Bridport Road and Albert Road.

A £1.2 million building project to provide a hall, meeting rooms and kitchen facilities - all with disabled access - can then begin.

The new building will also have a youth centre on the first floor, with sports facilities, and will be available for all members of the community to use.

One of the church leaders, Malcolm Davenport, has been appealing to churchgoers for donations and searching through a host of grants to raise £800,000 in just a year and a half. Now the church is close enough to its target figure to apply for planning permission for the work, which is expected to take a year.

He said: "We have a large and thriving congregation, particularly strong among families, young people and children, but our facilities are not large enough, nor of the right quality.

"We have space for 220 people seated in our hall and that is nearly at capacity every Sunday, so when we expand we will have room for 350.

"One of the most important things about this development is that the facilities will be available for all sorts of community groups, not just our congregation. We don't want to leave the church locked up all week and just open it on Sundays - that's a criminal waste of the buildings."

Church leaders decided on the move after discovering that it would cost £400,000 to update the 1914 buildings to comply with its legal requirements for disabled access.

Mr Davenport said: "We thought we might as well go the whole hog and get facilities that would really be good for everyone."

The project is expected to start next year, once the rest of the money has been raised and the church has won planning permission. The move will mean that the Baptists will be homeless for a year, but they are hopeful of getting temporary facilities while the work is carried out.

Councillors on West Dorset District Council's development control east committee will meet to discuss the proposal over the next few months.