The Diocese of Leicester successfully secured up to £148,500 from the Church Commissioners’ Minor Repairs & Improvements scheme to distribute during the financial year 2024 to 2025.
Since April ‘24, a panel has been meeting bi-monthly to make decisions on applications and, as of its meeting last month, all the available funding for this grant scheme has now been fully allocated.
Grants of up to £5k were available to PCCs (£10k for those within the 20% most-deprived parishes on the Church Urban Fund deprivation index) to support parishes in the upkeep of their buildings by making minor ‘stitch in time’ repairs or to facilitate small improvements to aid the mission and ministry of the local church.
Commenting on the completion of the grant allocation process, the Venerable Richard Worsfold, Archdeacon of Leicester and Chair of the panel, said: “It has been very encouraging to see so many churches in the diocese over the past year being helped through this grant programme. As a diocese we wished to ensure all the £148,500 of secured national funding was able to be awarded within the relatively tight national timescale and I am delighted we have been able to achieve that.”
He added: “My thanks for that go to all the church officers and professional advisers who made the grant applications, as well as the diocesan staff and grant panel members who worked so hard to achieve the grant programme.
“Whilst the grants themselves may have been relatively modest, the targeting of them mainly towards urgent repair projects should secure the desired ‘stitch in time’ effect to prevent more serious and expensive fabric issues arising.”
This funding has been able to support parishes across the diocese with a wide variety of projects ranging from repairs to eradicate wet rot, improving disabled access and refurbishing rainwater goods, to masonry repairs, repointing and more.
You can find out more and read the evaluation report for the allocation of funds here.
The Church Buildings Team would like to thank all those who care for their church building.
Image shows previous work underway to repair wet rot within the South Aisle beam of St John the Baptist, South Croxton.