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BCD SPECIAL REPORT ON
HISTORIC CHURCHES
22
ND ANNUAL EDITION
39
FUNDING IN
PARISH CHURCHES
David Knight, Lisa McIntyre and Emily Greenaway
E
VERY YEAR churches in England
spend around £78 million on
development and building
maintenance. This encompasses
significant adaptation to broaden the
church’s range of activities, and it
includes repairs and conservation to
keep the building wind and watertight
and in good decorative order. A further
£29 million is spent on new buildings.
This total of £107 million spent is
a useful proportion of the £175 million
understood to be needed each year for
works to church buildings, but is clearly
not all of it. When the Listed Places of
Worship Roof Repair Fund was launched
in 2014, the speed with which applications
flooded in showed just how welcome
this additional funding was, especially
as it was relatively easy to access. The
additional £25 million that will be offered
in 2016 will also be in high demand.
PRINCIPAL SOURCES OF FUNDING
In addition to the support generously
given by local communities to keep
their parish churches functioning,
significant support is made available
through the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF)
with £30 million available per year for
essential work to places of worship in the
UK. Churches can also apply to other
HLF schemes, the Big Lottery or other
distributors relevant to the project.
Central government provides financial
assistance through the national statutory
conservation bodies and through a
few UK-wide schemes. (The national
statutory conservation body for England
is now called Historic England, and
English Heritage has become a separate
charity responsible for properties in
care. In Scotland, Historic Scotland is
being merged with RCAHMS to become
Historic Environment Scotland.) This
article will focus on two national schemes
for supporting listed places of worship,
both of which have been affected by
recent changes.
LISTED PLACES OF WORSHIP
ROOF REPAIR FUND
The LPOW Roof Repair Fund grant-aids
basic but necessary fabric repairs to
roofs and rainwater disposal systems. It
is administered by the National Heritage
Memorial Fund (NHMF) on behalf of the
Treasury. It was set up in December 2014
with an initial £15 million set aside by
the government to address water ingress
as a major reason for decay of church
buildings and a potential threat to keeping
them open. The Roof Repair Fund was
envisaged as a one-off scheme. Despite a
short application period, approximately
1,900 applications were received. As a
result, the chancellor extended the fund
Water-staining from past leaks in the roof of the Lady Chapel of St Thomas and St Edmund, Salisbury: the church was awarded £82,000 for urgent roof repairs under the
Listed Places of Worship Roof Repair Fund in 2014. (Photo: Jonathan Taylor)