The Registry handles most legal matters affecting the Diocese, including those relating to church buildings and the faculty jurisdiction.
This is the department which actually processes your faculty application (technically known as a petition for faculty) once you have obtained a Notification of Advice and completed the 28-day notice period.
The Registry is separate from the Diocesan Offices and is located at:
Birketts
Providence House,
141-145 Princes Street
Ipswich IP1 1QJ
The Diocesan Registrar, James Hall and his Deputy, Kevin Wilson, are assisted by the Registry Clerk, Angie Long. Angie is your point of contact for any enquiries once your application is with the Registry. It’s at this point that the £200 faculty fee is payable.
Once you have received notice from the portal that the public notice certificate has been submitted, please send a cheque for the Faculty fee of £200 payable to Birketts LLP to The Diocesan Registry, Birketts LLP, Providence House, 141-145 Princes Street, Ipswich, IP1 1QJ. If you wish to pay by BACS, details are as follows:
Bank of Scotland
Sort code: 12-16-39
Account: 00136604
Birketts
Please use reference 2345/153 followed by the name of the parish.
There are a number of queries that you should refer to the Registry in the first instance, rather than the DAC Office including:
- Obtaining permission for someone to use the church or churchyard for secular purposes on a regular basis (eg running a café or shop inside a church, installing telecoms equipment in the church tower)
- Extending a faculty that is approaching its expiry date
- Exhuming human remains
- Reserving burial plots
- Obtaining an interim faculty for emergency work
- Help with establishing the course of boundaries and responsibility for boundary structures.