AN evening of celebration is being held at a Kates Hill church to mark the 100th day of the grade II listed building being open to the public.

Campaigners battled for nine years to save St John's Church and their prayers were finally answered in July, when they became leaseholders and managed to reopen the building - which had been closed for 14 years - in August.

Members of St John's Preservation Group will mark the first milestone by hosting a festive event on December 20.

Anyone can join in the fun, which will start at 6pm with a visit from Santa and carol singing and music from the Blackheath Ukulele Collective will start at 6.45pm.

Group chairman Deb Brownlee, will also use the opportunity to tell people about what has been achieved within the first 100 days and outline plans for 2017.

She said: "The first few months have been quite frenetic, as we try to achieve many things for the building at the same time. We had great difficulty in finding tradespeople to give quotes for the emergency waterproofing works, but finally we found a company and to our delight the urgent roof repairs were done in a week.

"The building is now windproof and watertight and we move on from there. The main thing is we opened the building straight up for the public, seven days a week, and around 1,500 people have visited so far - a great credit to this wonderful church building."

Deb said the group still needs financial help to carry out more work and cover running costs, as the insurance alone costs £200 per week.

Donations can be sent to St John's Church Preservation Group, The Old School House, St John's Road, Kates Hill, Dudley, DY2 7JT.

She is also asking for people to 'Take The Pledge' by volunteering two hours of their time a month to help out with odd jobs.

To find out more, visit the Save St John's Church, Kates Hill, Dudley page on Facebook, or call 07871195042, 07522184461 or email savestjohnschurch@hotmail.co.uk