We have some beautiful buildings and some tremendous challenges
We need to balance the mission needs of our churches with the heritage aspects of owning some of the most beautiful properties in the region
These pages give advice on how you can make the best use of your church building.
If you are looking to do any work for your building or want advice on a whole range of building-related matters, this section is full of helpful guidance for you.
As well as general advice and support on buildings you will find sections explaining:
- The Diocesan Advisory Committee and the Faculty Process
- Quinquennial Inspections and the work that emerges from them
- A range of useful leaflets covering health and safety topics including
- Working at Height
- Electrical Safety
- Personal Safety
- The support we can offer those maintaining historic buildings
We want to help make sure our buildings are assets rather than millstones helping us in our mission. These pages show you how.
Due to the recent rare but devastating events within the Diocese of Liverpool, representatives from parishes have asked whether the diocese has a policy on critical incidents arising out of any violent actions of individuals on church premises and church-controlled venues. Due to the diverse nature of parishes/church communities within the diocese it is not practical to produce a policy that would provide a ‘one size fits all’ approach. It is the responsibility of each PCC/Hub to risk assess their activities, and associated risk and to produce a specific risk management plan to eliminate or manage the risk.
This document will help outline procedures to follow
Our church buildings can be a valuable asset
They are a focal point for our communities, a reminder of God’s presence and starting point for our worship, ministry and outreach in mission
Sometimes they feel less like a blessing than a millstone when they need expensive repairs or are too big, or too inflexible.
Creative adaptation of buildings can restore the blessing and enable them to be in use seven days a week for the community with the church.
Our Buildings Advisor is Tom Beesley. His role includes:
- Advice on building problems and regular maintenance
- Supporting parishes following their Quinquennial Inspection
- Supporting parishes with their future plans and vision for their buildings
- Help and advice on developing a major building project
- Help and advice on applying for a Faculty
- Advice on selecting and working with your Architect
- Assistance in focusing the Church Council’s ideas when applying for Capital Funding for their project.
Contact:
Tom Beesley – Resources Buildings Advisor
0151 705 2180 (Tuesdays only)
Mobile 07836 242 986
tom.beesley@liverpool.anglican.org
Useful downloads
Managing arrangements for the good order of churchyards
The Parochial Church Council (PCC) has responsibility for the maintenance of their churchyard
Our diocesan regulations are set in place to make sure that churchyards are managed responsibly, sensitively for the benefit of all.
Finding the last resting place for a loved one can often be a sensitive, difficult pastoral issue. The Diocesan Churchyard Regulations have been established to maintain the highest possible standards and guide those charged with making sensitive decisions.
The regulations describe the type of memorial the minister (Rector or Vicar) of a parish may permit in a churchyard. If a memorial does not comply, the minister may not approve it and an application for a Faculty (special legal permission) from the Chancellor of the Diocese will need to be made. Similarly, if the minister is unwilling, a Faculty can be applied for.
Here are the full Regulations along with a summary and guidance. We suggest that ministers read the summary first.
For further details visit the Liverpool Diocesan Registry website:
liverpooldiocesanregistry.co.uk/faculty-jurisdiction/churchyards
Useful resources
Your guide to what you need to do if you are looking to make any alternations to your church building.
This is done via the faculty process, which provides a statutory framework for the church to balance mission needs with heritage considerations.
The faculty process is governed by the Faculty Jurisdiction Rules 2015.
The Chancellor of the Diocese, an Independent Judge, is the final arbiter for all Faculty petitions.
The Diocesan Advisory Committee (DAC) is a statutory body responsible for advising the Chancellor of the Diocese about the judgements he makes.
The DAC are here to help you make sure you have the correct paperwork and all the necessary information you need for your alteration proposals.
Get in touch
If you have any queries or need guidance on the registration process please contact:
Chris Leggett
DAC Secretary
E: chris.leggett@liverpool.anglican.org
We take health and safety very seriously
Health and Safety can be a complicated area of law, and it is easy for parishes to make mistakes that may have serious consequences.
We cannot eliminate every risk, but we are working to produce and keep updated a series of Making It Easier guides on aspects of health and safety law.
This page contains guides to some vital aspects of health and safety in churches.
For further health and safety, support visit the Health and Safety Executive website.
Useful downloads
Heritage
We have been entrusted with the care of many beautiful and historic churches.
These have been passed down to us from previous generations, and our challenge is to care for them, maintain them and pass them on to those who come after us in at least as good a condition as that in which we received them.
Even if your church is a modern building, and unlisted, the chances are that one day it will be regarded as a historic asset, so it should be treated as such.
The idea that Faculty petitions and/or planning applications from unlisted churches are treated any less seriously than those from listed ones is a common misconception, and modern churches often contain historic artefacts which have been salvaged from closed churches.
There is a school of thought which says caring for historic churches is a drain on time and resources. However, if properly done, it is a wonderful opportunity for outreach and for witnessing to the glory of God. A historic church is a blessing and an asset to the community it serves and, with a bit of vision and perhaps some sensitive adaptations, will continue to be so for many years to come.
Useful downloads
Listed Places of Worship Grant Scheme
The Listed Places of Worship Grant Scheme provides grants equivalent to the VAT cost incurred when making repairs to listed buildings used as places of worship. The scheme covers repairs to the fabric of the building, along with associated professional fees, plus repairs to turret clocks, pews, bells and pipe organs. Applications are normally made by email.
For an application form and a full description of what repairs are and are not currently covered by the scheme, go to the website www.lpwscheme.org.uk.
Welcome tourists
Here is some advice on making the most of your building as a place of hospitality and historic interest
Why bother?
Research by the Church Visitor & Tourism Association (CVTA) shows that 40 million visits are made to churches each year and that on average a parish church can expect between 700 and 4,000 visits a year.
These are figures most churches can only dream of in terms of their congregations, and represent a massive opportunity for mission. Most church visitors are happy to make a donation to church funds if approached in the correct manner.
But what about insurance?
Surely having people wandering around the church puts it at risk of damage, vandalism or theft?
The official position from Ecclesiastical Insurance which insures most Anglican churches is that churches should be open as often as possible: if they are obviously open, cared for, and – where possible – attended, this actually deters crime.
There are some obvious precautions to observe, such as locking away valuables and cash and preventing access to dangerous areas such as boiler rooms and vertical ladders, and the Ecclesiastical Insurance website gives full details of these.
Now is the time to start looking at how well your church welcomes visitors and tourists.
Ten Top Tips to get you started!
- Decide on opening times and stick to them: We all accept that occasionally there will be a funeral or other event which prevents the church from being open to the public, but generally sticking to set times allows the church to plan for volunteer attendants to be available and visitors to plan their visit.
- Publicise the fact the church is open: There are so many low-cost and no-cost ways of doing this nowadays that there is no excuse for not doing so! Place a sign outside the Church, advertise it on Facebook, Twitter and/or the church website. The more people know your church is open, the more people will come and visit it.
- Offer visitors a warm and genuine welcome: Hospitality and welcome are at the heart of our faith, and opening up our churches gives us the opportunity to practice them. It is obviously best to have someone there to greet visitors, talk to them and offer to show them around, but if this is not possible, provide then some attractive welcome signs with contact details and basic information about the church.
- Give visitors accurate and up-to-date information: It is better to offer no information at all than to leave out-of-date information on display. Nobody wants to come to a church and read a poster advertising last year’s Christingle service or a flower festival which finished a week ago. It is even worse if service times, contact details, etc. are out of date.
- Make votive candles available: Many people who visit churches aren’t interested in joining or attending regular services, but they are happy to sit, pray and light a candle – perhaps in memory of a loved one or as a prayer for someone who is ill. They are generally happy to make a donation in return for the candle. One church paid for new toilet facilities entirely out of the profits from its votive candle stand!
- Write – and sell – a quality guidebook: Guidebooks can be lucrative as a lot of people collect them as souvenirs of their visit. Make it as attractive and as accurate as possible. I have produced guidelines on writing and selling church guidebooks – contact me for details.
- Make Gift Aid envelopes available: Gift Aid increases the value of any donations received by 25% at no extra cost to the donors provided they are UK taxpayers.
- Leave a guestbook out and encourage visitors to sign it: The guestbook is a very useful source of information which builds up over time: how many visitors came, where they came from, what they liked and – and didn’t like – about it. It is also a means of communication as visitors can leave prayer requests, personal memories of the church, and other messages.
- Consider partnerships with other local churches, businesses or attractions: If there are other churches nearby, why not consider co-ordinating visiting times and forming a ‘tourist trail’? A local cafe or tea-room might offer church visitors a small discount in return for some publicity on the church noticeboard or in the church magazine/guidebook? The possibilities are endless!
- Join the Church Visitor & Tourism Association (CVTA): The CVTA is the UK’s premier association for those involved in church tourism and offers a website with loads of useful resources, a regular email newsletter and an excellent annual symposium. You will get lots of useful ideas and support.
One of my projects is to increase the number of churches in the Diocese of Liverpool which is open to visitors and tourists, to support those which already are and which seek to improve the experience they offer to their visitors or to attract more of them.
Maintaining our church buildings through a regular programme of inspection
A Quinquennial Inspection [QQI] is a five-yearly report on the state of the church building by an approved architect or surveyor. It is one of the most important tools for the local church in maintaining the building’s fabric.
The report usually includes a list of recommended works in order of urgency, each of which requires a detailed specification and schedule of works before they can be undertaken.
Each specification is then submitted to the DAC for advice before a petition for a Faculty can be made to the Chancellor.
A Quinquennial Inspection of your buildings should be carried out every five years by your Quinquennial Architect. Following the inspection, the DAC will send a copy of the report to the PCC, which should discuss its content and recommendations and agree on a programme of work to eradicate any problems highlighted.
The Buildings Advisor, Tom Beesley, will contact parishes following receipt of the report and make arrangements for a site visit to discuss the contents of the report and the Architects’ recommendations. Following that visit, the Building Advisor will send copies of his notes to the Parish, the Archdeacon and the DAC.
A self-assessment of progress should be made every year throughout the Quinquennial period to highlight any outstanding items.
Parishes should work closely with their architect, the DAC and the Buildings Adviser to ensure that any recommended repairs have a planned programme in place to carry out the work.
View our step-by-step guide to the Quinquennial Inspection Process.
All quinquennial repair work will require a faculty. Please see the link to the DAC pages for faculty advice and downloads.
Your Quinquennial Architect
The key to good care of your church building is having a sound working relationship with your architect or surveyor. Your architect should be regarded as the Church’s GP.
The QQI architect sends the parish Incumbent or priest-in-charge a Query List before the inspection date is arranged. The QQI Architect asks that each item on the Query List is available on the day of the inspection to enable the report to be conducted thoroughly to the Diocesan Guidelines.
Although an inspecting architect or surveyor is only appointed for the purpose of Quinquennial Inspection, there is a great deal to be said for keeping the same person, each time and year after year. It makes for:
- better planning and programming of work
- an established professional relationship that is both helpful and creative
- the architect knowing about the church, its history, construction and most importantly, its problems.
The DAC strongly recommends that the inspecting architect and author of the QQI Report should be the same person who administers and directs any subsequent repairs.
Buildings Advisor
For help and advice contact:
Tom Beesley
Resources Buildings Advisor
t: 0151 705 2180 (Tuesdays only)
m: 07836 242986
e: tom.beesley@liverpool.anglican.org
EIG (Ecclesiastical Insurance Group) has produced a helpful booklet with hints and tips that your church may find useful in the cold weather.
This risk guidance offers you practical advice for some of the most common issues.
Please keep this somewhere safe so you can refer to it over the winter months.
Topics include burst pipes, maintenance and temporary heating: