From September 2017, the Heritage Lottery Fund’s (HLF) Grants for Places of Worship programme will close to new applications.  This does not affect the government’s grant scheme for reimbursing expenditure on VAT (called the Listed Places of Worship Grant Scheme).

In its place, funding for repairs of places of worship will be available through HLF’s existing Our Heritage (up to £100,000) and Heritage Grants (up to £5 million) programmes.  These grants will be available to both listed and unlisted places of worship.

Claire Walker, Chief Executive of the National Churches Trust commented:

“Many people think that the Church of England pays for the upkeep of the UK’s church buildings.  That’s just not true – it is up to parishes themselves to raise the money needed to repair a leaking roof or fix a crumbling spire.”…

….“Churches are the UK’s single most important category of historic buildings, with 12,500 of the Church of England’s church buildings listed and 45% of all England’s Grade I listed buildings cathedrals and churches.  They are unmatched for history, architecture and sheer variety anywhere else in the world.”

To keep up to date with the changes that are occurring please visit the Heritage Lottery Fund blog which provides some useful details.

A further briefing document has been produced by the Church of England to help parishes caught in this transition period which is available here. 

The Diocese of Truro and Transformation Cornwall jointly run a Meet the Funders programme on an annual basis.  This consists of a main event which took place in March and follow up workshops to help applicants apply to funders.  Spaces are still available on these workshops and the details can be found here. 

For further help and support please contact Rebecca Evans Rebecca.Evans@truro.anglican.org 01872 360039 – part time Monday, Wednesday and Thursday.