Dean will petition the Queen to protect the Church

RECTORS must keep control of their churches or the Dean of Guernsey will petition the Queen in council to defend local religious rights.

The Parochial and Ecclesiastical Rates Review Committee published its report into the future of financing church properties last week, following six years of work.

It recommended that ratepayers should still fund the repair and maintenance of the parish churches and rectories.

But the Dean, the Very Rev. Canon Paul Mellor, pictured, was concerned about several of the report's other recommendations – particularly one allowing secular management committees to find other uses for the parish churches.

He said the rector should decide on non-religious uses of churches as it was consecrated ground.