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Church of England urged to revamp vicarages
by Unite

11th June 2009

The Church of England should revamp its more than 6,000 vicarages and rectories to bring them up to modern environmental and safety standards, Unite, the largest union in the country, has said. 

Unite will tell the Ministry Division of the Archbishops’ Council on 16 June that its clergy members, living in poorly maintained vicarages, have had to put up with inertia and a host of poor decisions by dioceses when it comes to undertaking necessary repairs.

These include papering over cracks; central heating being replaced in the middle of winter, rather than summer; and one minister waiting so long for renovations to happen that he gave up the ministry altogether.

In a paper to the church, Unite - which represents about 2,500 faith workers - said that it has represented members relating to parsonage maintenance and ‘the vast majority of ministers know others who could tell stories of incompetence, carelessness or neglect’.

At a gathering of clergy spouses in one diocese, addressed by the diocesan surveyor, the anger expressed was reportedly so strong that the Bishop’s wife had to call the spouses to supper before things got out of hand.

Clergy are concerned that their vicarages are sometimes riddled with damp and not maintained properly. This leads to serious health and safety risks.
 
Unite is calling on the church to practice what it preaches in terms of energy efficiency and carbon emissions.

Unite also states that it is very bad for the church to be seen arguing for ‘green’ policies to avoid climate change while also pumping disproportionate quantities of CO2 into the atmosphere from its badly maintained parsonages. 

Rachael Maskell, Unite national officer, community and non profit sector, said: "We want to work with the church authorities and their surveyors so that there is a high-quality and structured programme to maintain vicarages and rectories, which incorporates the latest energy efficiency technology.

"There are severe health and safety implications for clergy and their families, as well as visitors, if the building is in a dilapidated state for any length of time."

Unite’s recommendations include:

• the diocesan surveyor must be qualified and registered with the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors – and independent of the diocese
  
• contracts with builders must outline their obligations – and a mechanism should be in place for reporting failures to honour those contracts – and there should be a weeding out of sub-standard building firms 
  
• structural issues marked ‘urgent’ should be dealt within six months.

Rachael Maskell said: "The present method of maintaining parsonages, which not only house the clergy and their families, but are often a centre point of the community is not effective – and needs to be brought up to the best modern practice."