THE CONTEXT
The Church of England has provision to achieve net zero carbon emissions for its church buildings by 2030. This is an ambitious project for such large and often old buildings, but one that the PCC of St John, Warley and St Hilda, Halifax are actively working towards.
Both of our buildings at St John’s, Warley are heavily used by the community:
Church Building
In addition to regular church services and occasional offices (baptisms, weddings and funerals), our church building hosts:
- a Parent & Toddler Group twice a week in term time;
- a monthly community cafe;
- concert;
- hosting Warley Town School nativity play;
- community gatherings; and
- building hire for occasional meetings.
Church Hall Building
The hall has two significant regular bookings:
- it is home to Warley Preschool five days per week in term time; and
- it is the Warley base for the girls and boys Uniformed Groups.
Both of these organisations offer highly valued education and activities for the children and young people of the parish.
The hall is additionally used by the community for parties and celebrations and has also been the starting point for community gatherings such as Rushbearing for many years. We have also had regular bookings for groups such as slimming clubs and dog training over the years.
THE VISION
We have been very fortunate to have been protected by a five-year contract for utilities during the huge escalation in utilities prices in recent years. However, this season will be coming to an end later this year and we need to prepare ourselves for the increased in cost of gas by achieving greater efficiency and lower gas use.
As a PCC we are committed to the Church of England 2030 vision and striving to work towards being net zero. Before we started this project, our energy efficiency rating was E so it is critical that turn around this situation as quickly as possible.
At present, we are having to decline, occasional bookings of the Hall and Church in winter, because the cost of putting the heating on for those bookings is far higher than we could reasonably charge people. This has been disappointment to members of the community who rely on these large community spaces for special occasions.
As part of this journey we have recently fulfilled all of the criteria to meet the AROCHA Eco Church Bronze Award and are all well underway towards achieving Silver over the coming year. These awards are a signal to the wide world that we are taking environmental issues very seriously, and are bearing these criteria mind in all aspects of our life and work – from worship, to land management, the running of our buildings, how building works are undertaken and are encouragement of members of the church, as well as the community to take a similar interest and care in such things.
The PCC are committed to a 3 stage project to improve the ecological footprint of our church and hall buildings. As a result, these buildings will be more cost effective to run and sustainable into the future.
This is to be completed in 3 phases:
Phase 1 - The replacement of all lighting in both the church, and our buildings has now been completed with LED lighting significantly reducing our energy usage.
Phase 2 - The replacement of the 30 year old boilers in each building with modern A* efficiency boilers that will burn one third less gas than our current arrangements. In addition, some of the radiators in church will be replaced with triple radiators to increase efficiency of output thus reducing the time needed to heat the building.
Phase 3 - To create a lower fixed ceiling in the main body of the hall and install an electronic roller shutter to the stairwell to keep heating in the hall where it is most needed for the majority of bookings and reduce amount of heating needed to achieve an ambient environment in an affordable manner.
We are currently working towards raising funds for Phase 2 to be completed. The total cost of all of the works for this phase to be completed is £33,950 plus VAT. We are well underway with raising nearly half of this amount and are reaching out to the community.
Should we reach a higher level than this target of fundraising, any access funds would then be applied to phase 3 of our works?
Should we reach a higher level than this target of fundraising, any access funds would then be applied to phase 3 of our works.
We are seeking match funding with this being an environmental project to boost donations from members of the public.
Any donation that you might be able to make to help us to meet our goals would be most gratefully received.