Lancashire church leaders step up water charge campaign (From Blackpool Citizen)

Lancashire church leaders step up water charge campaign

11:42am Thursday 29th January 2009

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By Rob Calderbank »

LANCASHIRE church leaders have stepped up their campaign against a proposed rise in water bills despite a 12-month freeze being imposed on the charges.

The Bishop of Blackburn, the Rt Rev Nicholas Reade, has called for United Utilities to scrap its plan to introduce new charges for churches and community groups which will result in a huge increase in the amount they have to pay.

He said the year-long moratorium introduced following an outcry from churches, charities and community groups over the “unfair” and “ill-conceived” charges “did not go far enough”.

Tomorrow a mobile poster accusing water companies of reducing bills to big business, and passing on the resulting £100 million shortfall to churches and other community premises is visiting Blackburn Cathedral as well as churches in Chorley and Lancaster.

The Bishop said: “If left unchallenged the charges could do untold harm to churches and local organisations providing vital spiritual, community and social care.

“The 12 month moratorium does not go far enough. It’s time the injustice of these proposals was recognised, and that they were scrapped.”

The Rector of Chorley, the Rev Dr John Cree, who faces an annual increase from £520 to £3,500 at St Laurence Church, said: “We welcome the fact that United Utilities has brought in a moratorium to re-think, but it is important for us to continue to keep the pressure on them and Offwat to listen to the voices of charities and churches.”

United Utilities, which manages the water supply in the north west, planned to calculate bills based on the area of land estimated to cause run-off into a public sewer, rather than an organisation’s rateable value.

But earlier this month it put the plans on hold for churches and community groups saying that it would hold discussions with industry regulator Ofwat, who proposed the changes, to come up with a long-term solution.

The new charges are set to be debated by the General Synod, the ‘parliament’ of the Church of England next month.

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