Historic cathedrals, churches and chapels at risk of disrepair nears 1,000

Nearly 1,000 historic cathedrals, churches and chapels are at risk of falling into disrepair amid a funding crisis, a charity has warned.

The National Churches Trust said an additional 53 places of worship were added to Historic England's 2024 Heritage at Risk Register in the past year, taking the total to 969.

Some 958 of them were cathedrals, parish churches, chapels and meeting houses which have been hit by a financial crisis due to falling numbers of worshippers .

The trust said 3,500 churches had closed in the past 10 years and more would follow if Rachel Reeves scrapped tax relief for repairs to such listed places of worship.

Thirty-six Tory MPs, church leaders and charities have written to the Chancellor urging her to maintain the 24-year-old Listed Places of Worship scheme which exempts such buildings from paying VAT on restoration work.

The current commitment to funding the scheme ends in March next year, which means the Treasury has to decide whether to end it, continue with it at its current 20 per cent rate or reduce it.

The scheme pays out between £25 million and £40 million a year on VAT claims once the work is done and has helped cover restoration at almost 5,000 listed places of worship.

Sir Philip Rutnam, chairman of the National Churches Trust and former permanent secretary at the Home Office, said "priceless heritage" of Britain's places of worship was "in danger as never before".

He said the trust feared that many of the 53 churches and also those already on the register would simply be "left to rot and decay" because of the funding shortages.

The Culture Department will decide whether to renew the scheme within months but Sir Philip warned that its Treasury spending settlement had been less generous than some other government departments.

"If the VAT scheme, which has been in place in its current form since 2004, is not renewed, the costs of repairing a historic church to enable it to stay open would increase by a fifth," he said.

"We fear that if the scheme is not renewed, more historic churches will close."

Parish churches face £1bn repair bill It is estimated the Church of England alone has a backlog of repairs to parish churches estimated at over £1 billion with the annual repair bill of £150 million.

An analysis of the register showed that Lincolnshire, Shropshire, Herefordshire, Devon, Cornwall, inner and central London, parts of Manchester and the East Midlands contain the largest numbers of historic churches on the Heritage at Risk register.

Some 336 MPs, more than 60 per cent of all the MPs in England, have a church, chapel, meeting house or cathedral on the at risk register in their constituency. They include Sir Keir Starmer, Kemi Badenoch and Sir Ed Davey.

Among those at risk is the Church of St Philip and St James in Ilfracombe, Devon, which has damage to its main window, the erosion of stonework and water seeping into it. The condition is said to be "very bad" with risk of rapid further deterioration.

Norwich's Roman Catholic Cathedral has also been added to the list because of the risk of further rapid deterioration and loss of fabric, as has St Martin church in Yapham, in Yorkshire's East Riding.