Winchester Consistory Court: Clark Ch, December 2002
The vicar and churchwardens petitioned for a faculty permitting the construction of a new church hall on part of the churchyard, funded in part by the sale of the land upon which the current church hall stood. Members of the public vigorously opposed the petition. The chancellor found that there was a real and genuine need for a church hall without which the mission of the church would be impaired, and therefore went on to consider the relevant factors using the balancing exercise propounded by the Court of Arches in Re St Michael and All Angels, Tettenhall Regis [1996] Fam 44. [1996] 1 All ER 231. The objectors had urged the chancellor to ignore the decision of the New Forest District Council that had granted planning permission.
The chancellor reviewed the authorities and held that a consistory court should assume that a planning decision made by a local planning
authority was correct unless there was convincing evidence to the contrary.
Having considered at length all objections raised, the chancellor granted the faculty.
The chancellor went on to state that a consistory court's jurisdiction was established under section 6 of the Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction Measure 1963 and that under section 81 such court was effectively in the same position as any civil or criminal court. No media interview should be conducted with a witness before or during his evidence as it could amount to a contempt of court.
Note: The chancellor, in holding that a consistory court should assume that a decision made by a local planning authority was correct unless there was convincing evidence to the contrary, relied upon his own decision in Re St Mary, King's Worthy (1998) 5 Ecc LJ 133, Winchester Cons Ct, distinguishing Re St Peter and St Paul, Upper Teddington [1993] 1 WLR 853, London Cons Ct. He derived support for his approach from Re St Kenelm, Upton Snodsbury (2001) 6 Ecc LJ 293, Worcester Cons Ct. In reviewing the authorities he referred to Re St James' Church, Stalmine (2001 j 6 Ecc LJ81, Blackburn Cons Ct in which Chancellor Bullimore had stated, 'I think the proper approach to those points is to say that if they can be raised with the local planning authority, and permission is nonetheless granted, they cannot be
raised again in the consistory court'. The chancellor thought that Chancellor Bullimore had misunderstood his views in King's Worthy and that such misunderstanding had been perpetuated in a footnote in Hill, Ecclesiastical Law (Second edition. Oxford, 2001) , para 7.71, note 229.
(2003) 7 Ecc LJ 238-239
