A PARISH church that didn’t “have due regard” to the guidance on the Church of England’s commitment to net zero when it applied for a college to exchange convection gas heaters with nine latest convection gas heaters has been granted the college.
The Consistory Court of the diocese of Newcastle permitted the college for the church, Holy Cross, Newcastle, as an exception, owing to the financial penalties that will be incurred by the parish had it been refused.
The church’s PCC had been in discussion with the DAC since at the very least November 2023 in regards to the need to exchange the church’s heating system. In February, the parish obtained a quotation of £33,795.60 from a contractor to remove the present convection gas heaters and replace them with a recent equivalent.
At a gathering on 6 June, the DAC indicated the necessity for further evidence of the steps taken to think about and evaluate options, and concluded that it couldn’t recommend the parish’s proposal for approval. The DAC pointed to concerns regarding the justification of the choice to exchange the warmers with one other fossil-fuel system. It beneficial taking the opinion of an independent consultant. That suggestion was not followed.
It then became clear that the parish had already committed a deposit of £17,000 to the contractor. This caused the Archdeacon of Northumberland to approach the Registry with a view to urging the court to take a sympathetic view of the church’s position, given the financial embarrassment that will inevitably follow if permission for the proposal was refused.
The application for a college was heard by the Diocesan Chancellor, His Honour Simon Wood. He said that the statement of needs presented before the court was “conspicuously silent” on the C of E’s commitment to net zero and the necessity to have “due regard” to it under the CBC’s guidance issued under the Dioceses, Pastoral and Mission Measure 2007 and the Faculty Jurisdiction Rules 2015.
“Where laws, whether an Act of Parliament or a Church Measure, imposed an obligation on an individual to ‘have due regard’ to guidance of this type,” the Chancellor said, the legal duty to have due regard meant that “the person to whom the guidance was directed isn’t free to follow the guidance or not as she or he chooses.” As a matter of law, the guidance needed to be followed unless there have been “cogent reasons” for not doing so.
In declining to recommend the parish’s proposal for approval, the DAC plainly had that principle in mind, the Chancellor said. The evidence suggested that, in to this point as advice was taken, it was from contractors who had an interest in securing a contract from the parish. There was no independent evidence in support of the opposite rejected options.
The Chancellor shared the DAC’s concerns. He said that the guidance had not been given the required weight and that there had been “a too ready willingness to search out ‘cogent reasons’ for not doing so”. The consequence, the Chancellor said, had been “to make a financial commitment that the parish simply cannot now afford to lose”. The court was “faced with an entirely avoidable problem”.
But the church needed to be properly heated. Apart from regular worship, the church was in use throughout the week by a wide range of organisations of all age groups, for whom proper heating was essential. Although the court was critical of the dearth of independent evaluation, the heating system chosen seemed to be the one realistic one which was reasonably priced, despite the fact that the court was handicapped by the dearth of research of the results when it comes to cost and carbon footprint of the alternatives.
“In considering the query of affordability”, the Chancellor said, the court couldn’t “ignore the very substantial financial commitment already made for which there can be no obvious contractual or other treatment to recuperate it”.
Therefore, while the court deprecated the actions not taken by the parish, it concluded that, within the circumstances that had arisen, it will on this occasion grant the college sought. In the ultimate evaluation, “the necessity for heating alongside the financial penalty that refusal would entail requires a practical approach,” the Chancellor said.
A refusal of a college would, in financial terms at the very least, almost definitely delay the meeting of the needs of the church, “since the loss thereby occasioned, along with the time . . . to build up the additional funds required for a possible dearer alternative, can be substantial and hinder the power of the church to fulfil its mission”, the Chancellor said.
There were two conditions of granting the college. First, the church was to enter right into a green gas tariff or a separate agreement with a carbon-offsetting scheme to offset as best it could the emissions from the non-renewable gas that will be used over the lifetime of the brand new system. The second condition was that the church should draw up, with skilled advice, a plan to discover steps open to it to make a meaningful contribution to net zero, setting out those who it will adopt and the way it will maximise the available savings. The plan should be sent to the Registry by 28 February 2025.
This had been an “embarrassing episode within the governance of Holy Cross”, the Chancellor said. He emphasised that his judgment shouldn’t be “taken as a licence to be indulgent and may function a warning to any Newcastle diocesan parish that [was] inclined to act in like manner” that the consequence was more likely to be “less benign”.
