More Church buildings than ever before are in danger of being knocked down, latest figures show. The number of churches placed on this year’s Buildings at Risk list, by the campaign group Save Britain’s Heritage (SBH), was the highest added in one year since the register was started 20 years ago.
There is now a total of 60 churches on the SBH’s inventory of all buildings under threat in England and Wales.
The list includes properties that are not used regularly or those standing empty and at greatest risk of demolition.
The Sunday Telegraph’s Save Britain’s Churches campaign is calling for a range of measures to keep churches at the heart of community life, including increased funding and grants to help them adapt to community use.
More than 7,000 people have signed up to our campaign, including Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the actress Joanna Lumley and the musician Jools Holland.
St John’s Church in Oakley, Hampshire, was one of those added to the register this year.
A dwindling congregation and high repair bills led the Rev Brian Nicholson to announce last year that the church would close.
A local group, Friends of St John’s Church, has since formed to try to raise the funds needed to restore it.
Betty Ashlin, 69, its chairman, has attended the church since 1939.
“It hurts a lot of people in the village to know that the church will be closed down and we will not be able to use it. A lot of older people use it and the closest alternative is two miles away and there is no parking there. On Remembrance Sunday, there were 110 of us stood outside St John’s in the pouring rain for the service. The church holds a special place in my heart and also for the other parishioners – I was married there, my children were christened there and my parents are buried there.”
Other churches now on this year’s risk list include: St Marie’s Roman Catholic Church in Widnes, Cheshire, a Grade II listed building closed at the end of 2006 with no plans for its future use; the former Royal Dockyard Church in Sheerness, Kent, used as a community centre since it was made redundant but recently granted planning permission to be converted into flats; and St Gregory’s Roman Catholic Church in Bolton, a Grade II listed building which has been desecrated repeatedly by vandals.
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