20 C O N T E X T 9 3 : M A R C H 2 0 0 6 and minds of the public in general, and of the local community in particular, that is the surest safeguard of their long-term survival. As trustees, we are very conscious of the risk that alterations made to satisfy legislative requirements and to accommodate extended uses of our churches might be at the expense of our central purpose of preserving the churches for posterity. Churches vested in the trust fall outside the Church of England’s faculty jurisdiction system, and are subject to the normal secular system of listed building controls. Nevertheless, we do not rely purely on the requirement to obtain listed building consent, but have recently agreed as trustees a conservation policy against which proposed alterations to our churches can be assessed. In essence, this has been drafted as a conservation plan for our complete estate of churches, following broadly the methodology set down in the guidance documents published by English Heritage and the Heritage Lottery Fund. The CCT conservation policy also sets out the procedure for making applications for alterations to our churches. Depending on their complexity the application will then be considered by the senior management team of the CCT, including the head of conservation, or by the newly constituted Conservation Working Group. This is chaired by me as trustee representative and consists of experts in the conservation field, currently Matthew Saunders of the Ancient Monuments Society, Adam Wilkinson of SAVE and David Heath of English Heritage, all acting in an individual capacity. The trust has recently carried out a review of its entire estate of churches, classifying them in six different categories as an aid to strategic thinking.This is particularly important in view of the limitation of our resources, not only of funding, but also of staff time. The first of the seven categories of church identified in the estate review, and by far the largest, is that of churches of high conservation value, where the priority is maintaining and repairing the churches to make the most of their special architectural and historic interest. Then there is a small number of churches or church towers which we own but consider are not of a quality that in the present funding climate would make the grade for being vested in the trust. We are marketing them to find suitable new users who would take them over, saving the trust future maintenance and repair costs. Next are two categories of churches where there may be opportunities for rural development projects or possibilities of reaching local management agreements with keen groups of users and supporters in the local community, encouraging a sense of local responsibility and ownership and freeing up CCT staff resources. Then there is the category of churches with potential for development to accommodate extended uses. The final category is of large urban churches with the maximum potential for developing new audiences and contributing towards the regeneration of urban areas and communities. Preservation can seem a lonely and thankless activity, engaged in an unending battle to arrest, or at least to slow down, the inevitable effects of time and decay on the things that we love. Conservation, by contrast, is in my definition positive and forward-looking. We are now beginning to see the churches in our care not as an ever-increasing portfolio of redundant churches, as may once have been the case, but as a more fluid estate, in which some churches may be run by local communities, some licensed or leased to be used by particular groups, some sold or converted to other purposes, some possibly even returning to parochial use. Most of all, though, I believe that it is by widening and strengthening the place that the churches hold in the affections of the public at large through use and activity that we can best ensure the long-term preservation of our wonderful collection of historic churches, and that the wider way in which we are now conserving and adapting our churches is therefore essential to providing them with a sustainable future. More information at www.visitchurches.org.uk Richard Griffiths is principal of Richard Griffiths Architects and a trustee of the Churches Conservation Trust. The proud red gothic tower of St Leonard’s dominates Bridgnorth’s skyline. Seemingly medieval, this massive church is almost entirely aVictorian restoration. Around it is an oval of charming houses, almost like a cathedral close. Photo: Eddie Brown
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