The Gateway Project

Opening up spaces for a village we love.

St Mungo's has been part of Balerno since 1863.

The Gateway Project is our commitment to the next 160 years.

The Vision

What is the heart of this project?

The Gateway Project — Here's what we're planning

Opening up a green space for the whole village.

The church field is a significant part of Balerno's landscape, but it has never been accessible for the community, and we’d love to open it up. New pathways, additional tree planting, and providing a natural connection to the Water of Leith walk.

Opening up a place to belong.

A sensitively designed building where anyone is welcome to come and meet with God and each other. A gateway building that belongs in Balerno, built to a high standard and sensitively nestled into the site to minimise the visual impact on the tree belt.

Opening up our counselling service wider.

Our professional counselling service, an organisational member of BACP, is a trusted source of support within the local area with around 2,500 appointments a year. The Gateway Project creates the opportunity to open that door wider, to all who need it.

Opening up a youth hub in Ladycroft.

The youth hub at our small church building, Ladycroft will be somewhere that young people can turn up, belong, and become. A dedicated, welcoming space, open to absolutely everyone.

St Mungo's has been part of Balerno since 1863. For over 160 years we've been supporting and serving the village we are part of and love.

Use the timeline to read some of St Mungo’s history in the community of Balerno.

Our story in Balerno

Conservation Area, Green Belt and Ecology

This matters to us too.

Balerno is a unique place to live. Edinburgh City Council's own Conservation Area Character Appraisal captures it well:

“…the open fields and mature trees giving the sense of a wooded drive to the village, with the stone walls at the junction creating "the sense of a gateway to a country estate.”

We take that description seriously. Balerno is a special place to live.

The church field sits alongside one of Edinburgh's most important nature corridors. The Water of Leith Local runs immediately adjacent to the southern boundary. We commissioned an independent ecological survey of the site before any plans were drawn, because we wanted to understand what was there, and what we had a responsibility to protect and where we might be able to improve things.

The survey found that the field in its current grazed state is of limited ecological value; it is uniform grassland, heavily managed for horses.

The Gateway Project intends to transform and to enhance the overall biodiversity of the site, for example by enhancing the woodland along the southern boundary of the site.

We have more extensive ecological studies of the site planned for this summer (2026)

The Gateway Project will also improve the drainage from the church field by addressing the run-off that currently affects the pavement and road at the Bridge Road entrance, especially in winter. A better-managed site means a more pleasant gateway into the heart of Balerno, for everyone who lives here and passes through.

We understand that a project like this will raise lots of questions within our community and we want to be as transparent and open as we can on what is happening and where the project is at currently.

If you have a question which isn’t answered here, please use the form to send it in and we will reply as soon as possible.

FAQs

No, we’re not at that stage yet. There is still work being done on the design concepts and we think it will be the end of summer 2026 before that is completed. Following this, there will be another 3 to 6 months of work preparing for any planning application if the trustees believe this is the right next step.
The building will take up roughly 1/3 of the field and be sensitively built to a high standard as the site is designated greenbelt. The requirement is a capacity to seat 350 people but on occasions such as Easter and Christmas to be able to utilise the space in order to accommodate up to 500.
No. St Mungo’s currently uses various different buildings across the village for different events, groups and services throughout the week - including staff offices. The Gateway Project will aim to bring a significant number of these onto the same site. On occasion there may be joint events and/or services with the Livingston congregation, but this will be the exception rather than the norm.
We know that parking is a significant concern across the whole village and something which impacts many local community groups and both school sites.
Edinburgh Council guidelines mean that we aren’t able to add a car park on the Woodcroft site – we will only have staff and designated accessible spaces and very limited visitor parking. As the building will be directly opposite the High School, we will plan to work with ECC to continue the same parking arrangements that currently exist.
We have appointed a Transport Consultant to feed into the design and planning at an early stage. The Transport Consultant will advise on both construction site traffic and traffic flow once we start using the finished building as well as parking.
We're not quite ready to share full plans yet because the design is still developing, and we'd rather show you something honest and accurate. But we don't want to wait until everything is finalised before opening up the conversation.
You can see where things are currently up to at two drop-in sessions in June:
Saturday 13 June, during the Farmers Market
Thursday 18 June, evening
Both events will be in Ladycroft church building.
Some drawings will be available to view, and we’ll be on hand to answer questions.
We hope to share plans more widely in autumn 2026. In the meantime, come and ask us anything or submit your question on the form on this page.
We are exploring options for the Wellness Centre but our current thinking is that the Wellness Centre would remain in Woodcroft House, with a refurbishment planned as part of the project.
The Wellness Centre will have its own entrance to ensure client confidentiality.
Yes, we are considering the whole church family when designing the new building and therefore it will be accessible for those with a variety of disabilities.
We are exploring the idea of retaining the current church building at Ladycroft. St Mungo’s has a long history of work with young people, and this building is where many of our activities for teenagers currently take place. So we are looking at the possibility of continuing to use this space as our Youth Hub.
Woodcroft field was left to the church in 1942 specifically for a new church building. Since the 1950s, the church has considered the idea of bringing forward a new church building at the field several times, but these previous thoughts didn’t come to fruition.
As Balerno has been home to St Mungo’s since 1863, and with our current church building opening at Ladycroft in 1869, we’re very much part of this community, and want to remain here.
We have investigated alternatives but no other buildings or sites in the area are available or suitable, so we reached the conclusion that we would focus on designing a new building on the land which was given for that purpose, and would aim to have a building that did not detract from the rural and conservation area setting.

St Mungo’s is a charity and the decisions are taken by the Trustees. In ‘church-speak’ the Trustees are called the Vestry. The make-up of Vestry is on our website here and is a combination of church members (always the majority) and church employees.
The next three Decision Points are:
1) The end of Concept Design and commencement of preparation of a planning application. This is two decisions. Vestry could decide that it is content with the concept design but that we will not start on preparing a planning application. These decisions will hopefully be taken in June/July 2026.
2) Submitting a planning application. The process of preparing a planning application will take between 3 and 6 months. Therefore we do not envisage being ready to submit a planning application until November 2026 at the earliest.
3) Outcome of the planning application. The timing of this is dependent on Edinburgh Council’s planning processes but is expected to take between 3 and 6 months.
Vestry have identified a number of factors which they will use to guide their decision-making. These include:
1.      Do the designs meet the vision of the church?
2.      Are the practical hurdles being resolved?
3.      Is the church family supportive?
4.      Do we have the funds to complete the next stage?
5.      Do we sense God is encouraging us to continue to next stage?
No decision has been made about the current buildings yet, but the latest design proposal does now highlight a likely way forward with them.
The new building will include offices for the Rector and staff. This will replace our rented offices on Bavelaw Road (what we call the Ministry Centre). Woodcroft, which we call the Wellness Centre, is the existing building in the field, and is the base for our counselling centre. The intention is to refurbish and extend this so that we can expand the service (and hopefully reduce waiting times for clients).
The future for the current church building, Ladycroft, is still being considered. We love and cherish the building, but it is too small and restrictive for most of our activities. However, we have begun to develop the idea that it can become a hub for our current youth activities and we can see that a few small changes to the building might enable us to expand the range and type of activities we could offer.
At the early stages of the project, the Vestry asked a group of St. Mungo’s members, all with significant property experience, to explore other existing buildings in and around Balerno that might be available to us.
To learn more about this process and the Options Appraisal, click here.
We are not aware of any suitable buildings, based on the established criteria, that have become available.
We are not required to keep Woodcroft or other buildings as a Rectory, but in the future should a Rector require accommodation, we would be required to provide one or assist the Rector to acquire their own residence.

Once we agree the design, which will be before submitting it for planning permission, we will have an estimated cost.
We'll explore a variety of funding streams, but from conversations with other churches and fundraising experts, we expect most will come from the Church Family, through sacrificial giving over several years.
We'll pursue grants and trusts too, though for a Balerno new build these are unlikely to contribute much. We’ll consider loans, but servicing the interest makes borrowing a short-term cash-flow tool, not a 30-year solution like a mortgage.
If God is putting on your heart to donate now, then you are very welcome to make a one-off or regular donation.
The account details: STMUNGOS EPISCOPAL CHURCH; sort code 83-19-15; account number 00266149.
Please make sure any gifts are clearly marked with “Gateway” and let Katherine know too, Katherine.burnett@stmungos.org

The land is currently held in trust by the Diocese. However, the Diocese has agreed to transfer the field to St Mungo’s and ownership will transfer once planning consent has been granted.
The new building will be owned by St Mungo’s.

The Scottish Episcopal Church has a “Net Zero Action Plan” and we are committed to incorporating the principles of that plan into the design. We will seek to minimise embodied carbon in the building fabric and target achieving net zero in use if realistic. In addition, part of the overall design approach is to ensure that the landscaping of the field improves access for the community, improves the biodiversity and water management.
A short-term Sustainability Focus Group have met in April and May to discuss a potential Sustainability Framework, and the outcome of their working will be fed into the design.
As of May 2025, we have reviewed the history of the site, carried out a wildlife survey and have had a topographical survey completed. We carried out a ground conditions survey in August 2025. This and the other surveys have not identified any problems or hurdles. We are intending to carry out an updated wildlife/ecology survey this (2026) summer.
Scottish building regulations mean that a high level of sustainability is mandatory, but all of these examples will be considered by our Sustainability Consultant, Max Fordham.
At present the intention is to heat the building using air source heat pumps. Solar panels are likely. A living or “green” roof is unlikely as the roof form does not easily support that. Collecting and using water needs more thought but we will certainly be managing the flow of water through the ground.
While we will no longer be able to allow RDA to use the church field for grazing should the project go forward, we are very keen to work with RDA to support them in whatever way we can.
From our conversations with the RDA so far, this will include ensuring our landscape design allows horse access through the field. We will be continuing to work with the RDA in this next phase of the design work
The building will be in the mid-to-rear half of the site and will take up around one third of the overall field. It will be built to a high standard and sensitively nestle into the site to minimise the visual impact on the tree belt.
A lot of work continues to be done to conclude a design that is appropriate to the setting.
The Sanctuary (the worship space where church services are held) will seat around 350 people. There will also be space for our children’s (Sunday school) work and for our church staff to be based in the building. By moving our staff offices to this new site we anticipate that we will no longer use our current office block on Bavelaw road.
We want the Balerno community to be pleased not just with how the building looks, but with the openness and landscaping of the site. The current design has the bottom half of the field open and landscaped with a path through into the woods and providing access to the walled garden. We plan to create new pathways, additional tree planting, and providing a natural connection to the Water of Leith walk.
This was previously the Rectory (Manse) but has been used for our BACP and COSCA accredited counselling service since 2010. The church subsidises this professional service, and we hope to improve the space we have for the service and also to be able to offer more appointments by adding an extension to the house.
Because our church building at Ladycroft is too small for the congregation, for the last 30 years and more we have had to hire different spaces in Balerno to hold our Sunday services and church activities. At present we use Balerno High School for our 10.30am service and children’s classes, and Balerno Parish Church for our 6.30pm service. We also rent separate office space for our church staff. The idea is to bring our three Sunday services in Balerno into the one building, along with our children’s classes.
Most of our mid-week activities that are currently held in our Ladycroft building would also now be held in the new building and this would include activities such as “Minis” (our parents & toddlers) group. The church staff would also be based in the new building.

Vestry have been prayerfully considering the growth strategy for St Mungo’s and the proposed initial designs reflect the optimum layout that builds in room for growth whilst maintaining the integrity and culture of worship.
The requirement is a capacity to seat 350 people but on special occasions, such as Easter and Christmas, to be able to utilise the space in order to accommodate up to 500.
A draft set of plans were shown to the church members in March 2026. These are still changing but we hope that we will be able to share these publicly in autumn 2026.
We are exploring options for the Wellness Centre but our current thinking is that the Wellness Centre would remain in Woodcroft House, with a refurbishment planned as part of the project.
The Wellness Centre will have its own entrance to ensure client confidentiality.
From our experience of using the raked seating in Heriot Watt, our view is that this does not suit how we worship together, and we will want a flat floor.
The desire for a prayer and reflection space has been included in the Client Brief and we will endeavour to provide this sort of space.
Yes, that requirement is included in the Client Brief and has been discussed with Page Park.
Yes, we are considering the whole church family when designing the new building and therefore it will be accessible for those with a variety of disabilities.

We are one church in two locations, and that will continue to be the case.
The new building will help to facilitate Sunday evening services in Balerno, as well as the numerous weekly events such as Prayer Meetings, Minis, courses and other events that currently take place during the week across various sites around the village.
St Mungo’s staff serve both Balerno and Livingston and a new building should have a very positive impact on staff wellbeing.
The Livingston service will continue as normal after the new building is complete.
We are running 2 drop-in sessions in June (Saturday 13 10am-1pm and Thursday 18 4-8pm), and are planning to run a landscaping workshop with the community after the summer break.
Respecting and listening to the local community is important to St Mungo’s because we’re part of the community and want to love it well.
We have already spoken twice with Balerno Community Council, MSPs, MPs, local councillors and other local organisations to keep them informed of our plans from the beginning.
We will invite the community to view the building plans before we submit a planning application (which will not be before November 2026) and we will listen closely to their feedback.
During the planning application the local community will be able to submit comments on the application to Edinburgh Council.
Good site management will be one of the key issues in selecting a contractor and we will expect them to ensure deliveries are restricted to certain times of the day and that site operatives park their vehicles in specified locations.
We recognise that there will be some community disruption, but we will do our best to keep this to a minimum and will communicate with the community throughout the construction stage.
They were told about our intentions in May 2024.
We certainly do not want to lose our links. No specific arrangements have been made, but we are aware that it might be helpful to the school for them to use our building for such things as end of year concerts and to continue to work with guidance staff around access to our professional counselling centre.

Ask a Question

There has been a lot of background work required to get the Gateway Project to this point. If you are interested in seeing more of that journey then you can see previous web pages and links here.