The Church of England has a Buildings for Mission initiative and recently provided funds to The Diocese of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich. These funds enable us to provide grants towards urgent or necessary repairs to church buildings. You can read the press release announcement here.
We administer the fund and the intention is to ensure that the application process is simple and that the grants are awarded quickly. Funds need to be given to parishes by the end of 2025.
We welcome applications from any consecrated church or licenced place of worship in the diocese needing repairs or wishing to make improvements to the building. We can also support expert surveys and reports, or things like scaffolding that enable repairs or improvements. We will give special consideration to any church that is on the Heritage at Risk Register.
There are two categories of grant: Repair or Improvement.
Repair Grants
The sorts of things we can consider for Repair grants include:
- Architect or other professional services fees such as structural engineering reports or archaeological surveys
- Repair of external building fabric: roof coverings, roof structure, walls, parapets, pinnacles and other architectural features, towers, spires, windows, doors, rainwater disposal system including below-ground drainage.
- Repair of internal building fabric: ceilings, floors, doors, walls and wall linings, plaster or panelling but not artworks such as wall paintings, mosaics etc.
- Repair of building services installations (electricity, water supply etc) where essential for health and safety and/or continuity of worship and mission use.
- Emergency repairs or holding works, e.g. propping, covering, protection etc.
Please note: Not all fabric repairs are eligible for support under the scheme. Routine maintenance, such as cleaning gutters, is excluded and so is work carried out on the basis of an insurance claim. The conservation of historic artefacts ( things such as tower clocks, organs and decorative brasses) and works to any part of the fabric that doesn’t form part of the envelope of the building, such as internal fittings, are also excluded. However, there are other forms of grant aid available for these works, so please contact the DAC office for advice.
Improvement Grants
The sorts of things we can consider for Improvement grants include:
- Additions, alterations or adaptations specifically to overcome building design defects or obsolescence such as undersized rainwater hoppers or drainpipes; or to improve access for maintenance.
- Additions, alterations or adaptations where essential to improve physical access, e.g. handrails, ramps, hearing loops, EV charging points, bike racks or parking spaces.
- Improvements to building services installations where essential to sustain worship and mission use, such as improvements to heating, lighting, wiring, kitchens, WCs. This might mean a new or upgraded utility connection if a suitable electrical supply is required to enable better heating or to enable a church to decarbonise.
- New installations or improvements to existing installations for digital connectivity, whether through a wired connection or 4G/5G mobile Wi-Fi for use by the parish.
All work funded by the initiative is subject to the faculty jurisdiction, and works cannot proceed until the necessary formal permission has been obtained by an application under List B or for a full faculty where this applies. Please check with the DAC office if you are not sure.
Eligibility criteria
- All grants are assessed on a first-come, first-served basis and the availability of funds. Urgent fabric repairs, especially those aimed at addressing concerns that have led to a church being placed on Historic England’s Heritage at Risk register, will be given priority.
- You can apply for the MR&I grants before you have faculty approval for the works. If these require a full faculty please bear in mind the schedule of DAC meetings and the need for a 28-day notice period. You should also check the availability of your chosen contractor and any lead-times that may apply.
- Applications for Repairs must be identified within your current quinquennial report as being urgent (do now) or do within the next 18 - 24 months. If you do not have an up-to-date report you should contact your inspecting architect straight away and instruct them to carry out a new inspection. An up-to-date report is required for assessing applications for grants towards fabric repairs.
- We prioritise essential works, but essential doesn’t necessarily mean urgent. We will take into consideration whether carrying out work at this stage will prevent greater decay and more expensive repairs at a later date. We will use your Quinquennial Inspection to help us decide, and may consult your inspecting architect too.
- You cannot instruct any contractor to proceed until you have the necessary faculty consents, and the award of a grant from this scheme does not prejudice the application process one way or the other.
- Up to 90% of the project cost can be funded by a grant, provided the sum does not exceed £5K (excl VAT).
- Half of any grant awarded will be paid on approval of the grant, the balance after the completion of works and submission of relevant supportive documentation such as a contractor’s invoice or Certificate of Completion.
When to apply and what happens then
We invite applications from Thursday 5 September.
The application form can be downloaded below, along with an example of a completed application form.
Application Form | DOCX
Example of Completed Application Form | PDF
You will need to read the form carefully and complete it in full and provide any extra documents we need; it is important that your answers are both complete and accurate. Any incomplete submissions cannot be considered; please check with us before submitting if you are unsure about anything.
Your completed application, together with any supporting documentation must be received in full by Tuesday 5 November. Please send this to Toby Hart, Church Buildings Support Officer, by email: toby.hart@cofesuffolk.org.
All applications will be reviewed by the grants panel during the week starting Monday 18 November and you will be informed of the outcome during the following week with the funds deposited before the end of the year.
We are unable to say at this point if there will be a second or subsequent round of funding. If all funds have not been allocated there will be additional rounds which we will publicise in advance.
Remember that if, as is highly likely, the proposed works qualify under the Listed Place of Worship scheme for the reclamation of VAT then this element will be excluded from any grant awarded. Please check if the works are eligible under LPoW by following the link here.
Thank you for your interest in applying for this fund. Please see below how we use your data.
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