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Plans for the development of the temple were underway as long ago as 1988-9. Tom Hancock was eventually chosen as the architect because of his experience in designing the Peace Pagodas at Milton Keynes and Battersea. As part of the process several submissions were made to the planning office. These met with various objections, but finally the go-ahead was given. |
| A condition of the planning consent was that the new building replaced an equivalent area of existing buildings; so the old school assembly hall and a smaller building needed to be removed. |
| Partly to conserve funds but also as an exercise in community co-operation, the residents at Amaravati decided to undertake the demolition work. Members of the Sangha from both Chithurst and Harnham monasteries came for varying lengths of time and the buildings were carefully dismantled with much material put in store for future re-use. |
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Considering the variety of folk employed there was
remarkably little that went wrong: one nail in the foot and one acrobatic descent from the
ceiling as the worst of it. |
