St Cuthbert's Church, Bensham

I wanted to make a correction to my 'Church Commissioners sell church to SSG for £100' post. The sale of the church to the St Stephen the Great Charitable Trust (SSGCT) has not yet gone ahead as I said it had. SSGCT have offered to take on the building for 'worship use in accordance with the rites and customs of the Orthodox Christian Church and as a Christian book and gift shop' and they have been asked to develop these proposals. The Church Commissioners will then publish a 'draft Scheme' under the Pastoral Measure 1983 setting out the details of these proposals which the public has four weeks to respond to. If objections are received the Commissioners' Redundant Churches Committee will consider them and decide whether the Scheme should proceed in the light of the issues raised. This page has more information about the process. If a 'draft Scheme' is published I will be sure to let you know.

Apologies for getting it wrong in my previous post. I contacted Jonathan Wallace, editor of the blog I linked to, who told me that the information in his post came from a journalist on the Evening Chronicle, the local paper. (No criticism of Jonathan is intended by the way - he was simply passing on what he'd been told.) The Evening Chronicle had apparently already published the story, but I've been unable to find that online to check out the details. I have discovered an earlier story 'Revamp hope for old church'. Anyway - sorry. I should have taken more time to look into the story.


On an utterly unrelated note I saw that Jonathan's latest post is about local opposition to plans for a big top on a large bit of grass. The 'NE1' organisation is part of 'Hope08' and they have a website about the big top plans here.

Hope 08, if you remember, is the large initiative set up to help Christians have an impact on their communities.