Tuesday, November 22, 2016

Bishop's plan to demolish Welsh church delayed by council

Future still in balanceThe Bishop of Menevia in Swansea has suffered a further setback in his efforts to demolish a church in Aberystwyth, after the town’s council decided to order an independent survey of the building.

Bishop Tom Burns’ plans to knock down the Church of Our Lady of the Angels and St Winefride has been resisted by a group of parishioners since its closure in 2012.

He says the church is structurally unsound and unsuitable for the needs of the parish. 

But the campaign group, Save our St Winefride’s, rejects this and wants the church, which is in the town’s conservation area, to be restored.

In a latest twist to the dispute that has been running for 13 years, the Mayor of Aberystwyth Town Council has said the authority will pay for an independent survey to establish “the true state of the building” so that future decisions “will be made accordingly.”

Bishop Burns said this week that the survey would be “meaningless and a waste of public money” as the church was surveyed in 2012 by the Catholic Church Insurance Association, which found the premises to be a health and safety risk to parishioners and clergy.

He maintains that a small group of parishioners is preventing him from opening a suitable church for the town’s 276 Catholics.