Simon Jenkins says something must be done about Britain’s listed churches in the context of their only occasional use by dwindling congregations, especially in rural areas (The decline of churchgoing doesn’t have to mean the decline of churches – they can help us level up, 7 April). As a former chair of a diocesan advisory committee (the Church of England’s equivalent, under the “ecclesiastical exemption”, of a planning department) and currently chair of a local authority’s planning committee, I may be uniquely placed to comment.
The idea that local authorities should be empowered to take over churches for community use has a fatal flaw. Like the C of E’s parishioners, councils have no money to look after listed buildings that are expensive to maintain, impossible to heat and difficult to subdivide, while maintaining the heritage interest.
