Its annual review found a growing number of churches are seeking funding for urgent repair, with climate change also having a serious impact on historic buildings.
Eddie Tulasiewicz from the National Churches Trust told Premier what’s behind the increased demand for cash.
“Each parish has to raise the money themselves… if they need to fix the roof or something like that – it costs a lot of money. If you want to fix a roof it’s half a million quid… and in the past there has been funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund but that’s gone down quite substantially in the last couple of years.”
Another contributing factor to the rise in churches seeking funding is linked to the government ending its Listed Places of Worship Roof Repair Fund in 2016.
Figures in the Trust’s Annual Review show that it received 480 applications for grants in 2017 – an increase of 26 per cent on 2016.
In 2017, the National Churches Trust awarded £1.7 million to help pay for 230 repair, maintenance and development projects at churches and chapels throughout the United Kingdom.
This was an increase of £300,000 compared to the £1.4 million it awarded in 2016.
Highlighting this, Tulasiewicz added: “We’re finding that a lot of churches are applying to us for grants and we’ve had about a quarter per cent increase in the last year for people applying for funds to keep those churches…
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