Mackman Group, the Churches Conservation Trust and the Bridge Project put their heads together to look at the branding of the new St Peter’s and all its planned activities. The aim was to make the new St Peter’s attractive to people who had never thought that anything inside St Peter’s was relevant to them and so they never entered the building. Considerable time and effort was made to find out why people, even those who had been born in Sudbury and lived here all their life, had never gone into St Peter’s – what was stopping them? 

Was it lack of curiousity, was it fear there might be something inside they did not feel comfortable with, was it peer pressure? Was the building seen as something that “other people” did but not them? Was the building just a boring throwback to another age that people did not connect with. Maybe their life was already full and they just did not need St Peter’s. Were there so few events on in St Peter’s that it was just not considered as an interesting venue.

So those are some of the reasons for the name change. A new name will never please everyone. Of course, names are not everything, its what goes on in the building that counts. It would though have been nice if the Friends had been consulted on the new name or if the Local Advisory Group had been asked for their views before the new name was adopted. But it was not to be.

My personal view – the building is St Peter’s. What goes on inside maybe call it Sudbury Arts Centre in St Peter’s. Getting more and different people into St Peter’s is what counts.