Government launches pilot to make listed places of worship sustainable

The Government has today announced the launch of a pilot scheme that, through practical and financial support, will aim to make listed places of worship self-sustaining. The pilot, which will focus on the Church of England Dioceses of Manchester and St Edmundsbury and of Ipswich, will see £1.8 million spent over the next two years. Humanists UK has expressed alarm at the fact that the state appears, in effect, to be spending money that could prop up otherwise declining religious groups.

The money will be spent on funding ‘fabric support officers’, who will advise on repairs to buildings, on ‘community support advisors’, who will work to further embed the places of worship within their communities in order to help them generate other sources of revenue, and on repairs directly.

It follows on from recommendations made late last year in the Taylor Review: Sustainability of English Churches and Cathedrals. That review did not consider the possibility that maybe places of worship should give up their listed buildings, if they can no longer afford to pay for them themselves, or that the Church of England in fact has the eighth largest charitable trust in the world, so may not be as unable to pay for such repairs itself as it makes itself out to be. It also did not consider what safeguards should be in place to stop those receiving support and funding from consequently being able to further their proselytising missions, and there is nothing about safeguards in today’s announcement either.

Humanists UK Director of Public Affairs and Policy Richy Thompson commented, ‘It’s obviously essential that this country’s architectural heritage is well maintained. But if the current custodians of much of that heritage are religious groups that claim they can’t afford to maintain it themselves, then we shouldn’t just give them money and support that enables them to do so whilst also potentially freeing up their own vast financial resources for further proselytising.

‘Just three percent of young adults today say they belong to the Church of England. This is a church facing almost complete generational wipeout. It would be perverse if it is able to sustain itself due to state intervention. Instead it should give some of its buildings up, just as any other private enterprise that declines in popularity would have to.’

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