Church's £250,000 repair bill forces closure

A church in Barnsley is facing permanent closure after receiving a repair bill of more than £250,000.

The Parish Church of St John the Baptist in Dodworth requires extensive work, including a full Welsh slate roof replacement, structural timber and beam repairs, and work to address water ingress.

Canon Keith Farrow said raising such a large sum of money was "beyond our ability", leaving the diocese no choice but to close the 200-year-old Grade II listed building earlier this week.

"It's a deep regret really, because I know what the building means to people and we haven't taken this lightly, so my heart goes out to people," he said.

The church closed temporarily in May for repairs and structural surveys.

Farrow said what initially looked like being a £40,000 bill gradually increased to a much larger restoration project that would cost a quarter of a million pounds.

"We felt we needed to approach the diocese to say, 'Look, this is now a situation that is beyond our resources'," he said.

"So we took the very unhappy decision to ask the diocese to begin the process of closure."

He added: "People come for what I affectionately call the hatching, the matching and the dispatching... Many families have come to those ceremonies so they're emotionally attached to this building, but without huge help and huge resources we just feel that it's beyond our ability to save the building."

Services are currently held at the Methodist Church in Green Road, where a public consultation is planned for 12 August at 19:00 BST.

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