Chichester Consistory Court: Hill Ch, September 2002
A petition was sought to re-order the west end of the church by the replacement of oak doors with glazed doors, the removal of an existing screen and its replacement with a glazed screen, the introduction of a new kitchen and disabled toilet facility, improved disabled access, the introduction of a new lighting system and internal redecoration. The chancellor considered the petitioners’ arguments and the objectors’ arguments and granted the faculty having considered and applied Re St Luke the Evangelist, Maidstone [1995] Fam 1. In doing so he chose to make a comment he hoped would assist other petitioners, having noted misgivings expressed in the diocese and in the letters page of the Church Times. Concern had been raised about the problem of adopting the contributions of a plethora of consultees so that at the time the petition is presented ‘all one’s ducks are in a line’. Consultation, he advised, must not be confused with subjugation. A parish should not feel obliged to take on board each and every comment from an amenity society or consultee. It should give them adequate weight but should not incorporate every aspect of sometimes mutually contradictory advice as a valid project may thereafter be compromised. Petitioners should not feel that a proposal that lacks support in one or more particulars is necessarily doomed to failure. If a case is cogent and convincing as a matter of fact and law then a faculty will issue. He recommended the guidance set out in Part 2 of the Chancellor’s General Directions Concerning Churches and Churchyards, entitled ‘Preliminary Steps’ which mentions within it Making Changes to a Listed Church (1999) and The National Amenity Societies: Their Role in the Conservation of Anglican Churches (1998).
(2003) 7 Ecc LJ 104-105
