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No reason to fear church plan, says sect

Wednesday 7 May, 2008 12:01am

The Exclusive Brethren a controversial fundamentalist Christian sect has bought a 6ha site in McDonalds Rd to build a church.

The new church will replace one at East Gosford but other than that the group has no plans for the remainder of the land.

On Sunday about 60 people, mainly Lisarow residents, attended a public meeting nearby to protest against the development.

They say their main concern is the impact on the quiet area, particularly in relation to traffic movement.

They fear the new church, capable of accommodating 500 people, is the thin end of the wedge and will be the forerunner to other development on the site, including a school.

But church spokesman John Trimmer said residents had nothing to fear.

He agreed there were some traffic issues to be sorted out, but said they were not insurmoutable and certainly nothing of the order some residents believed.

Mr Trimmer said the site was divided into two separate titles with the new church to be built on one lot while the other would retain its rural character.

Initially meetings would be held in a renovated house with the new and larger church to be built later.

"We have been looking around for a site for about seven years to build a new church," he said.

"As most people will know there's not many suitable sites of that type in the area and when this one came up for sale we went ahead with its purchase even though it's larger than we require."

Mr Trimmer said the group's East Gosford church catered for about 160 people while the group also owned a smaller meeting hall at Wyoming.

Many who came to the church's meetings were families, who arrived in the one vehicle.

Larger combined services with brethren members from other parishes were held intermittently.

Mr Trimmer said all services and meetings would be held indoors and would not involve any noise that would disturb the area.

"Most of our churches worldwide are of similar design and the one planned for Lisarow will be no exception," he said.