Bedford Park Church Urges Support for VAT Campaign

St. Michael and All Angels wants Christmas visitors to write to their MP

The congregation at St. Michael and All Angels Church

December 14, 2024

St Michael & All Angels Church will be asking visitors to the Church this Christmas to show support for a campaign that would allow listed places of worship (of all faiths) to continue to reclaim the VAT they pay on repairs.

Unless renewed, the Listed Places of Worship Grants Scheme (LPWGS) will expire in March 2025 after 20 years. VAT would add 20 per cent to the cost of churches’ building repairs, on top of the skilled labour and materials required. The NCT campaign is supported by The Victorian Society, which has its headquarters in Bedford Park, and other local churches, including St Nicholas Church, Chiswick, which is also facing the need for urgent building repairs.

The Bedford Park Church would like those attending services over the festive season to write to their MP in support of the National Churches Trust (NCT), which is urging the Chancellor to extend the scheme.

It estimates that if the scheme ends, thousands of pounds would be added to its repair bills and those of other listed churches in Chiswick.

St Michael’s is facing a bill of over £200,000 in the next couple of years for repairs to its stonework – and as much again in the following years. It expects to welcome hundreds of visitors to its Christmas services and concerts (starting with the Nine Lessons & Carols service at 6.30pm on Sunday 15 December) and will invite them to write to their MPs in support of the campaign. The National Churches Trust has produced a template letter for this purpose.

The plea comes as St Michael’s launches a Heritage Conservation Fund to help preserve and maintain its Grade II* listed building.  2025 marks the 150th anniversary of Bedford Park , the first garden suburb, and St Michael’s is working closely with the Bedford Park Society on a programme of events to celebrate the anniversary.

Mary Pears, a member of its Heritage Conservation Fund committee, says, “It is a privilege, but also an enormous financial responsibility, to be stewards of our beautiful listed church building, which provides a home for so many community activities. If the Listed Places of Worship Grant Scheme were not to be continued, it would make our fundraising task 20% harder at a time when most household budgets are already greatly stretched.”

Local architect John Scott has written a letter to his own MP, Dr Rupa Huq, the member for Ealing Central and Acton, which includes much of Bedford Park. In it he says, “My own local church is St Michael and All Angels Bedford Park, a very important listed building itself and a great local landmark on the edge of your constituency, much loved and deeply embedded in community life. I am also involved professionally with church buildings across the south of England and I am only too aware how much the scheme contributes to the support of these precious pieces of our national culture. Few of them are financially able to keep their buildings in good condition without grant support.

“These buildings account for nearly half of Britain’s most important historic buildings (Grade I or equivalent), as well as by far the nation’s largest art collections (sculpture, stained glass, wall paintings, vernacular art etc). Around 20,000 places of worship are listed, and church buildings form a vital part of the identity of Britain’s landscape and townscape for tens of thousands of communities.”

The Vicar of St Nicholas Church, Chiswick, Fr Simon Brandes, has written to Andy Slaughter, MP for Hammersmith and Chiswick, saying, “Our church here in Chiswick is very much reliant on the scheme to stay open: Over the last several years, we have had to raise money to fund a £600,000 programme of works to repair damaged and dangerously crumbling stonework on the Grade II*-listed building. The LPSWGS scheme has made a critical difference in our ability to undertake the first half of this work, but we will be unable to achieve the final planned stage of works without it, and recent weather conditions have made the repairs even more urgent. Meanwhile our contributions to the community—not only as a parish church but via initiatives such as hosting a local branch of the debt advice charity Crosslight and participating in the Warm Welcome scheme—are threatened.

“I very much hope that as my MP you can raise this issue with Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Lisa Nandy, the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport of the United Kingdom. Already uncertainty about the future of the LPWGS is making it difficult to plan and budget for future repairs.”