PETERBOROUGH CATHEDRAL is appealing for £300,000 by the tip of March.
The Dean, the Very Revd Christopher Dalliston, says that this sum would see the cathedral through 2025, would help to satisfy the annual £2-million running costs, and construct relationships that may be the platform for a sustainable future.
Without fund-raising, there was an actual fear that the cathedral couldn’t proceed to maintain its doors open seven days every week, Dean Dalliston told a gathering of civic, business, and community leaders on Monday. Also present were representatives from the voluntary sector, the university, and other educational establishments across the town. The Muslim Council of Peterborough made an instantaneous gift of £1000.
The cathedral, which is at the guts of the town, was one of the vital significant medieval abbeys, and a church has stood on the location since 654. Mary, Queen of Scots, and Catherine of Aragon are buried there. The cathedral authorities describe the cathedral as “a cherished piece of the town’s identity . . . a spot that belongs to all of us, that has served as a cornerstone of community life for generations”.
The cathedral had faced many financial challenges over time (News, 13 January 2017), the Dean told the Church Times on Monday. “We don’t have any reserves here, really — a specific challenge now we have inherited from the past; so there’s little or no to enable us to weather any storms that come. We’re a grand cathedral in an ambitious and diverse city, but one which has quite a lot of issues, and we don’t have the nice and good here that are inclined to support cathedrals in the best way they do.
“So, we’re reaching out to a latest constituency to attempt to construct these form of relationships, and to create a more sustainable platform. We’re not a honeypot tourist destination on people’s immediate visitor list in the best way that the Yorks and the Elys are, perhaps. Even though now we have great treasures to supply, and persons are surprised and delighted to find us, we don’t have that fame in the intervening time.”
Peterborough city centre was emerging from a difficult period and showing signs of revival, even though it felt a bit fragile, the Dean said. The cathedral had had a record-breaking yr of events, including the hugely popular “Monsters of the Sea” exhibition, but those efforts couldn’t keep pace with escalating costs.
“There’s quite a lot of good will in the town towards the cathedral, but in addition a certain degree of complacency, due to the success we’re seen to be within the variety of activities and events and live shows and exhibitions. We’re seen as a vibrant institution,” he said.
“We have done an enormous amount to bring people in, and to make contact with latest demographic constituencies, and so forth — all of which has been wonderful and marvellous — however the underlying challenge is to construct a properly funded, sustainable, and ongoing future. There’s a limit to to what you possibly can do each by way of the staff now we have, and maintaining our core purpose as a spot of worship.”
The £300,000 sought would help to keep up worship and musical programmes that “uplift and encourage”, proceed educational initiatives nurturing the subsequent generation, and enable essential repairs to be carried out. “It’s not something you possibly can keep asking for,” the Dean said. “We don’t wish to should return to this example, going forward. There’s only so persistently you possibly can try this.”
Cathedral buildings have recently been re-purposed, on a small budget, to create conference space, which, it’s hoped, will increase revenue.
The Dean concluded: “We’re very heartened by today, and positive concerning the future, but this can be a challenge we share with others, in that the cathedral model shouldn’t be a straightforward one to work with. Everything is interconnected and organic. We can’t redeploy our fixed assets, or downsize, and things should not easy to disentangle.
“But I’m optimistic by nature, and I’m hopeful, in that I hear from the people who find themselves our stakeholders an actual desire for the place to flourish and do well.”
Owing to the forthcoming C of E spending review, cathedrals were putting their markers down, he said.
“Many of our cathedrals are facing critical situations, and there may be, in fact, the national-government dimension about treasurehouses of national heritage and culture. . . We’re committed to doing what we will on the local level, but there are others who’ve some influence to support cathedrals of their national role.”
