Targeting repair grants
The joint English Heritage/Heritage Lottery Fund Repair Grants for Places of Worship scheme is the largest single source of funds for repairs to listed places of worship in England and gives out £25m per year. The scheme is 100% over-subscribed.
“Not only are our parish churches and cathedrals an aesthetic feast spread out across the land.They are also a subversive challenge to our contemporary viewpoint. They are embodiments in stone, wood and glass, of our ancestors and their way of viewing the world.A few quiet minutes in an empty church can often make our way of viewing things seem foolish or trivial compared with theirs.” A.N.Wilson Writer
English Heritage's funding from Government has remained static and so have our grant schemes. The Heritage Lottery Fund's allocation from the Lottery has also declined and, though it continues to help places of worship with its other grant schemes, between us we are helping fewer congregations each year.
Building price inflation means that the £25m worth of grant we offered in 2002/03 would need to be increased to at least £29m in 2006/07 to buy the same amount of repair work.
The £25m per year which the Government, via the Repair Grants for Places of Worship (RGPOW) scheme, makes available is not a vast amount in an age when a single footballer's transfer fee costs just as much.
Grants in the Future
English Heritage and the Heritage Lottery Fund want to continue to run the RGPOW scheme jointly as it is the only budget big enough to make the really major repair projects happen. The average grant is now nearly £74,000. We are both committed to running the scheme until March 2008, but its future depends on the Government giving English Heritage enough grant-in-aid and maintaining the Heritage Lottery Fund budget too – and of course more money would be very welcome!
However, our recent Fabric Needs Survey revealed that 57% of the inspected places of worship required repairs costing £50,000 or less over the next five years and 37% needed repairs costing £30,000 or less. These smaller repairs are unlikely to be eligible for the existing RGPOW scheme but are still beyond many congregations’ budgets and will inevitably be put off when other more achievable projects arise.
We are therefore asking Government for an extra £4m a year for three years to start a grants scheme to help those congregations most in need to carry out smaller repairs. We will be working with the denominations and faiths to make sure the scheme is carefully targeted and simple to run. With this extra £4m, we think we should be able to double the number of repair projects we can support each year.
St Werburgh, Hoo St Werburgh, Kent
The Domesday Book records a church on this very exposed remote site on the edge of the North Kent marshes and the oldest part of the present building is the Norman tower. The church’s real glory though is its 13th century spire.
In the 1990s, the wooden shingles on the spire started to curl, slip and split. This allowed water into the interior and could easily have led to dry rot, deathwatch beetle infestation and structural problems. Despite valiant fundraising attempts, the cost of repairing the spire was far beyond the means of the small congregation, 65% of whom are retired. In 1997 English Heritage and the Heritage Lottery Fund stepped in with a grant of £130,000 towards total costs of £200,000.
The spire is now in good condition but other parts of the church need urgent attention. The north aisle roof was damaged during the War and patched up cheaply with a reinforced concrete slab covered with asphalt. The asphalt is now splitting and allowing water to leak through. English Heritage and the Heritage Lottery Fund have this year given a further grant of £107,000 so that the congregation can assess and then repair the damage. The parish’s fundraising plans to meet the total project costs of £178,000 include musical events, a car rally, a quiz and a barbecue. St Werburgh is now thriving under the inspiring leadership of the Reverend Andy Harding.