Church and heritage organisations urge UK Government to renew Listed Places of Worship Grants Scheme

The future of the Listed Places of Worship Grants Scheme is uncertain. Unless it is renewed, the scheme will expire in March 2025 and end the only regular financial support that the Government provides to help those looking after these buildings. This week, heritage organisations and those responsible for church buildings across different nations and denominations have come together to call on the UK Government to renew this vital scheme.

Read the letter sent to the UK Government 

As those responsible for the church buildings belonging to the Catholic Church in England and Wales, the Church in Wales, the Church of England, the Church of Scotland, and as representatives of the Association of English Cathedrals, the Historic Religious Buildings Alliance and the National Churches Trust, we have grave concerns about the future of the Listed Places of Worship Grants Scheme (LPWGS). The scheme was introduced in 2001 by the Rt Hon Gordon Brown, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, and has been running very successfully since, renewed by every government in power. This efficient and much-valued scheme, which is simple for all to operate, allows listed places of worship of all faiths to reclaim the VAT on building repairs 

In her Autumn Budget, the Chancellor, the Rt Hon Rachel Reeves MP, made no announcement about the extension of the LPWGS, which is due to end on 31 March 2025. We understand that the future of the scheme is now being considered by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. We are very concerned that the scheme may not be renewed and the impact this would have on the future of the UK’s historic places of worship. It is important to understand the scale and importance of the role these buildings play, not just in the nation's cultural life but in society more broadly, including in many of our most deprived communities.

There are around 20,000 listed cathedrals, churches and chapels in use across the United Kingdom, belonging to a wide range of denominations, together with listed synagogues, mosques and temples. All of these buildings are valued highly for their architecture, for their history and for the economic and social benefit they bring to the communities they serve. They are also sacred spaces and places of welcome for people within faith communities as well as the wider public.

The UK's most important historic and community buildings

Church buildings form by far the biggest base for voluntary activity in the UK. There are more foodbanks based in churches than there are branches of McDonald's, and they are the base for voluntary activity supporting youth, carers and toddlers, the elderly, the lonely or vulnerable and for those at risk of addiction or mental illness. Many are used as 'warm-spaces', a particularly pressing need at this time of year.
In England, church buildings account for nearly half of the Grade I listed buildings. The number in need of urgent repair is growing and the latest Historic England 'Heritage at Risk' register (published on 14 November 2024) shows the total number of places of worship from all faiths on the register is 969.

The Church in Wales operates over 1,200 churches including those in tiny rural communities and in some of the most deprived urban areas of the United Kingdom. About 70 per cent of those buildings are listed. The LPWGS has been an essential support for the care of those precious places by local communities.

The situation is similar in Scotland where over 70 per cent of the places of worship belonging to the Church of Scotland are listed. Of those, 16 per cent have a Historic Environment Scotland A listing. Many of these are in rural locations where the church is the sole remaining building available for wider community use, as many local authority owned buildings are closed.

In addition to their architectural significance, cathedrals, churches, and chapels form the nation's largest art collections of sculpture, stained glass, wall paintings, woodwork, metalwork and vernacular art. They also form a vital part of the identity of Britain's landscapes and townscapes at the heart of place in tens of thousands of communities.

The House of Good (National Churches Trust, 2021) has shown that this activity is worth over £55 billion a year, a conservative estimate made by independent economic analysts using the Treasury's Green Book. More recently, The House of Good: Health (National Churches Trust 2024) has shown the impact this activity has on the demand for health care, reducing the burden on the NHS by at least £8.4 billion a year.

The contribution of churches and cathedrals to our creative industries and to tourism is also significant. 9.35 million people visited English cathedrals in 2023, a 17 per cent increase from 2022, with many of the visitors coming from overseas. At the same time churches are by far the largest base for amateur music-making by choirs and orchestras, as well as housing thousands of professional performances ranging from pop to classical music each year. They also foster talent; singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran and leading violinist Tasmin Little began their musical careers by taking part in church music.

The care and funding of church buildings

In the UK the task of caring for and funding church buildings and their repair falls overwhelmingly on local people. This is different from the situation in most of the rest of Europe where the state plays a major role, either through systems of ownership (as in France) or taxation (as in, say, Germany or Italy). 

All these buildings and the activity they generate depend on local volunteer effort and funding. The LPWGS is the only regular financial support that the Government provides to help those looking after church buildings – and of course its effect is simply to refund the VAT that they have paid to the Exchequer.

The practical and strategic importance of the LPWGS

If the Government were not to renew the LPWGS the task of keeping church buildings in good repair and open for people to use would be made much harder. Quite simply, 20% more money would need to be raised by local people to pay VAT to the Government, on top of the costs of skilled labour, materials and other project costs. We have no doubt that this would put the viability of many church buildings and community activities at risk. The LPWGS pays out approximately 500 grants per month, refunding VAT to congregations at an average of around £4,000 each. It is already enormously challenging for congregations to raise the money needed for the repair and future projects being planned would be abandoned. This would also have a knock-on effect on employment and supply chains, with many church building projects employing specialist craftspeople and requiring the use of UK-sourced materials including stone, wood and metals.

The LPWGS is an incentive to other funders as it means that 100 per cent of their money will go towards necessary and urgent repair works, which in turn supports craft skills and the building sector. In response to the growing crisis facing church buildings, The National Lottery Heritage Fund has recently announced £100 million to support places of worship throughout the UK over the next three years. In this collaborative funding landscape, extending the LPWGS would demonstrate the determination of Government to support the heritage of church buildings and develop their wider use through community engagement and support activities.

Evidence of need can be seen in the Church of England’s backlog of repairs to parish churches estimated at £1 billion and an annual repair need estimated to be £150 million, as well as large scale church closures in Scotland and Wales. Failure to renew the scheme would also be an enormously demotivating step when the future of these buildings depends on countless local volunteers devoting their own time and energy to serve thousands of local communities.

We sincerely hope that the Government will renew the scheme by a further three years and also now look at making it permanent, enabling larger places of worship, such as cathedrals, which plan their repair work over five to 20 year periods, to commit to long-term projects with certainty that VAT costs will be covered by scheme grants.

With many thanks, 

•    Trevor Cooper, Chair, the Historic Religious Buildings Alliance
•    The Rt Revd Vivienne Faull, Bishop of Bristol and Rt Revd Andrew Rumsey, Bishop of Ramsbury, co-lead bishops for church and cathedral buildings, the Church of England
•    The Most Revd Andrew John, Archbishop of Wales, the Church in Wales
•    The Very Revd Jo Kelly-Moore, Chair, Association of English Cathedrals
•    The Rt Revd Philip Moger, Chair, Patrimony Committee, Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales
•    Sir Philip Rutnam, Chair, the National Churches Trust
•    Brian D Waller, Chief Executive & Clerk, General Trustees, the Church of Scotland