We are planning to develop our church for more use by local people. We know we have to raise the lettings fees - often, we charge nothing. How much is a fair charge, and how can we instigate a significant rise in the fee?

A CHURCH is a charity, and, like other charities, it cannot be run at a loss, or risk bankruptcy. To let your church building in ways that help others to share the cost is good stewardship.

Calculate the total cost of running and maintaining your church for a year. Include utilities, cleaning, maintenance, minor repairs, insurance, and caretaking. Allow a contingency percentage - say, five per cent - on top. Divide that total by the number of hours that the church is actually used. You can now attribute a fair cost to each hour of use, and can apply that to the congregation, church events, and also to other activities that are not run by the church itself.

So, for example, an orchestra that uses your church for four hours each week would be paying for about 200 hours at the same rate, per hour, as the congregation. This can then apply to any user of the building as a fair fee - one that I would use for charities and similar groups.

At times, you may find businesses, and maybe the council, want to book your space for an event - possibly all day and evening. They are used to paying high sums, and expect good support from the venue, and to impose themselves on it for the duration. Find out the cost of hiring a conference centre, or even the town hall, for a space the size of your church, and then set your fee to more than cover all your expected costs.

There may be extra cleaning, key-holder duty, clearing furniture, and so on, that the church has to take on. Remember that, as a charity, you are required to fulfil your own purpose, not provide indirect support for other groups and organisations.

If you find you are making more than enough money from this approach, with two levels of booking fee, there can be times when small groups, such as children's daytime groups, may use the church for free. I would recommend, however, that even church activity groups recognise how they are contributing to the cost of the space, as the congregation will otherwise be supplying the heat and other support for nothing.

Explore the implications, and ensure that you are as fair to the congregation as you are to everyone else. If you are pressuring the congregation to increase stewardship funds to cover costs, it is not fair to let other non-church groups off lightly.

Since you are developing added facilities in your church, the reopening is a good time to instigate new fee-levels. Use information from your architect, quantity surveyor, and services engineer to calculate the running cost of new utilities; the probable cycle and cost of renewals to facilities; and general maintenance. Allow for contract cleaning, so that your elderly members are not out every day trying to keep up with cleaning. This will give the new cost per hour.

Publicise your new space and facilities, along with the new letting fees, so that returning or new groups know what to expect before they fill in a booking form. At least for the first year, allow no concessions, so establishing a principle.

Send questions and comments to maggiedurran@virginmedia.com.