{"id":142408,"date":"2018-06-17T14:00:59","date_gmt":"2018-06-17T14:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/english\/newport-church-fire-worshippers-meet-in-car-park\/"},"modified":"2018-06-17T14:00:59","modified_gmt":"2018-06-17T14:00:59","slug":"newport-church-fire-worshippers-meet-in-car-park","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/english\/newport-church-fire-worshippers-meet-in-car-park\/","title":{"rendered":"Newport church fire: Worshippers meet in car park"},"content":{"rendered":"
Media playback is unsupported on your device
Media captionBethel Community Church is a Grade-II listed building<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The congregation of a church destroyed by fire held a service in the neighbouring car park as a probe continues into the cause of the blaze.<\/p>\n

The 130-year-old Bethel Community Church on Stow Hill in Newport was gutted after the fire spread from a derelict nightclub next door on Friday.<\/p>\n

About 95 firefighters and officers fought the blaze and two people have been arrested on suspicion of arson.<\/p>\n

The Newport mayor was among the 250 people gathered for Sunday's service.<\/p>\n

"Our building may be gone, but the church is alive," said pastor Andrew Cleverly.<\/p>\n

Worshippers said prayers and sang songs as Mr Cleverly asked the congregation to "pray for the future of this church" and for the community to "stand up and be strong".<\/p>\n

Mayor Malcolm Linton and council leader Debbie Wilcox were among the gathering and offered the council's "continuing support in helping the church to recover from this devastating fire". <\/p>\n

A 43-year-old man and a 36-year-old woman from Newport are being questioned in connection with the blaze that started in the old Zanzibar nightclub and spread to the church.<\/p>\n

Image caption Newport's mayor, Newport council's leader and other civic leaders attended Bethel Community Church's Sunday service <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Image caption Pastor Andrew Cleverly called for the community to "stand up and be strong" after the fire <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Image copyright Katie Maddocks
Image caption Bethel Community Church dates back to the 1880s <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

No-one is thought to have been hurt but a cordon remains on Stow Hill while the joint Gwent Police and South Wales Fire and Rescue Service investigation gets under way. <\/p>\n

The fire was finally extinguished on Saturday evening - about 24 hours after it broke out and spread to the church just after 18:15 BST on Friday.<\/p>\n

It has emerged concerns about the state of the former nightclub, which closed in 2010, had been raised with officials days before the blaze.<\/p>\n

Image caption Around 95 firefighters and officers fought the blaze at its peak <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Image caption Pastor Andrew Cleverly said the church had a 200-strong congregation <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Newport Conservatives said they emailed the city council on 7 June calling for the former Zanzibar and Heights 2000 club to be inspected due to "fear this could collapse or end up going up in flames". <\/p>\n

The complaints came following an online video showing people walking around the derelict building, which was full of debris and loose wires.<\/p>\n

Newport council said it was inappropriate to comment as arrests have been made.<\/p>\n

But Ms Wilcox said in a statement: "Practical steps need to be taken to support the church and its congregation in the short and medium term.<\/p>\n

Image caption About 250 worshippers held their Sunday service in the car park <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

"Our staff teams have been working in close partnership with the fire and police teams since Friday evening."<\/p>\n

About 40 people were evacuated from neighbouring properties after the fire, but some have since returned home.<\/p>\n

Stow Hill remains closed to vehicles and pedestrians between School Lane and Havelock Street, meaning some bus services through the city centre are being rerouted.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Media playback is unsupported on your deviceMedia captionBethel Community Church is a Grade-II listed building The congregation of a church destroyed by fire held a service in the neighbouring car<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":142409,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-142408","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142408","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=142408"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142408\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/142409"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=142408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=142408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=142408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}