Church visit reopens parish funding debate

We don’t know at this stage whether the current Vale douzaine are any kind of parochial insurgents, but in receiving, and accepting, an invitation for a showround from the Vale Church management board, there seems to be a recognition from both sides of the emerging interest in an ongoing debate of the funding of our parish churches.

As we approach parish meeting season, for the spring meeting where the rates and remede is set, who pays for what in our parish churches comes to the fore. Last year ratepayers in the Vale contributed £27,000 to parish church needs, while raising more than half a million pounds in total, most of it paying for refuse collections.

But as parish constable Richard Leale says, with the douzaines being responsible for the vision, direction, transparency and engagement of parish affairs, all spending needs to be scrutinised, and the partnerships established with church management boards, cemetery committees and the likes, require duties and responsibilities to be discharged in the most cost-effective and efficient manner on behalf of parishioners.

Douzenier Andre Quevatre, the Vale's representative on the church management board, said this weekend: ‘My stance has always been that it should be maintained correctly and appropriately in the same way that other important ancient monuments should be. I don’t see any difference between maintaining this and Castle Cornet and Fort Grey, it’s part of our heritage.'

Mr Quevatre makes a fair point. But the big difference between the maintenance of parish churches, and of ancient monuments and heritage buildings, is that one is funded by the ratepaying parishioner, and the others funded by the taxpayer.

So while the principles may be similar, the practice is rather different, and parish church funding is a matter which is only likely to come under increased scrutiny in the future, particularly in the next few weeks.