Heritage at Risk register lists 800 churches

MORE than 800 churches are at risk of structural failure, English Heritage's Heritage at Risk register shows. Places of worship were included for the first time this year, suggesting that about five per cent of all Church of England churches need significant repairs. ChurchCare assisted English Heritage by conducting the most comprehensive five-yearly survey of church buildings it has ever held, to contribute to the at-risk register. 

Next Methodist Conference Secretary named

THE next Secretary of the Methodist Conference will be the Revd Gareth Powell, it was announced last week. Mr Powell will succeed the present Secretary, the Revd Dr Martin Atkins, in September next year. The Secretary is a significant figure in the leadership of the Methodist Church, next to the President and Vice-President of the Conference. Mr Powell has been a junior figure in the Church's leadership for several years.

Priest to stand for election as Police Commissioner

A RETIRED priest is the Labour Party's candidate in the by-election for Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) in South Yorkshire. Canon Alan Billings, who has been an incumbent in the dioceses of Sheffield and Oxford as well as a teacher and academic, hopes to replace Shaun Wright, who resigned as PCC last month in the wake of the Rotherham child sex-abuse scandal. In a letter to voters, he said that the choice was between him or "three right-wing opponents who don't stand up for working people".