Churches in West Suffolk are raising every penny they can to keep the roof up. Many have valuable - sometimes unique - architectural features. They are all part of our national story - our inheritance.
Yet while local volunteers do everything they can to stand up for our inheritance, the Church has chosen to send £100 million to foreign countries in reparations to compensate them for the slave trade Britain led the world in abolishing.
Here in West Suffolk, we have All Saints in Gazeley, which struggled to fund roof repairs without which the unique wood carvings in the chancel – dating back to the 1500s – would have been lost.
There are many other such examples. St Peter and St Paul in Kedington – 1,000 years old – is struggling to raise funds, not helped by the Government’s decision to apply VAT to church repairs. St Margaret of Antioch in Cowlinge – another architecturally and historically significant church – faces restoration costs of more than half a million pounds.
There are many other such examples.
My position is that the Church should spend this money on supporting local parish churches - not sending it overseas on fashionable gesture politics with no intellectual or theological grounding.
Please add your name to my letter if you agree that this money should be invested in our parish churches.
