Comment | Cuts to church restoration budgets are hastening a heritage timebomb-and placing sites of refuge at risk

"Introduced 24 years ago, this scheme is the only regular stream of government funding available to England's churches, synagogues, mosques and temples, allowing them to reclaim VAT spent on restoration. But in April, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) set a cap of £25,000 per building on projects costing over £125,000, and cut the overall budget from £42m to £23m. If that total is reached before the end of the financial year, there will be no money at all for applicants."

"Anyone aware of the herculean fundraising efforts needed to fix an old church roof or bring its heating up to modern standards will probably be thinking: whoever thought even £42m would do the trick? A single parish church in east London, the Grade II*-listed St John at Hackney, required £6m to complete its recent seven-year overhaul. Historic England currently lists just shy of a thousand churches, chapels, meeting houses and cathedrals as "at risk"."

"The change has obviously given several vicars and congregants a turn. Giving evidence to the committee, Becky Payne, the development director at the Historic Religious Buildings Alliance, said: "We came across a Methodist church the other day that has to find another £400,000. When you have been fundraising for five or six years, that is a headache.""

Warnings have been raised about the deteriorating condition of England's listed religious buildings and the insufficiency of current funding for repairs. The Listed Places of Worship Grant Scheme, introduced 24 years ago, allows religious buildings to reclaim VAT on restoration work. In April DCMS capped reimbursements at £25,000 per building for projects over £125,000 and cut the annual budget from £42m to £23m, creating the risk that funds could be exhausted before year-end. Repairs often require millions; Historic England lists nearly a thousand religious sites as "at risk", and congregations face long fundraising burdens.

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