New website to help end leaking church roofs

MaintenanceBooker, a new heritage website to keep historic churches and chapels safe for the future is launched today in England and Wales, following a successful Heritage Lottery Fund pilot project in Yorkshire.

Set up by the National Churches Trust, the UK's church building support charity, and 2buy2, the national buying group for UK, charities, schools and churches, MaintenanceBooker makes it easy for churches to prevent problems such as leaking roofs and crumbling stonework.

Churches and chapels of all denominations can use MaintenanceBooker to get professional help for essential maintenance tasks, thereby preventing the need for expensive repairs.

Using the website: www.maintenancebooker.org.uk churches can book gutter clearance and repairs, lightning protection inspection, tree surveys and maintenance as well as asbestos surveys and removal. More services will be added later in the year, such as stonework and lime mortaring with bat surveys, and grounds and graveyard maintenance in the pipeline.

A video explaining MaintenanceBooker is available at https://vimeo.com/269895676

For many churches the cost of maintenance can be a major barrier to keeping their building in good repair, so users of MaintenanceBooker can obtain Preventative Maintenance Micro-Grants to help pay for the cost of gutter clearance.

Churches and chapels in the north of England, the Midlands and Wales can now use MaintenanceBooker. The service will be available throughout the rest of England from 3rd September 2018.

"Maintaining your church building is really important," says Steve Baylis, Head of Development at the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Birmingham. "Simple tasks such as keeping your gutters and drains clear, identifying any problems with trees and properly maintaining them and ensuring your lightning conductors are regularly inspected can ensure that a church building is kept in good condition."

"Tackling essential maintenance tasks sooner rather than later is an investment in your church as a place of worship and can help ensure that its heritage is safeguarded for future generations," says Michael Murray, Head of Church Support for the National Churches Trust. "Neglecting simple maintenance tasks often results in significantly higher repair bills. Using MaintenanceBooker will help avoid this. I hope our new website will make leaking church roofs a thing of the past."

Rob Kissick, 2buy2's Chief Executive Officer says: "Every company registered on MaintenanceBooker is vetted to ensure it has the appropriate qualifications; critical for all church repairs. The new website will save money and ensure that work is carried out by qualified individuals."

MaintenanceBooker is being rolled out across England and Wales this year with the support of Ecclesiastical Insurance, the UK's leading church insurer, the Pilgrim Trust and the Church in Wales.

Michael Angell, church operations director for Ecclesiastical Insurance added: "We are very pleased to be able to sponsor this service, which will help make sure that those maintaining some of our most irreplaceable buildings have the right experience and skills to do so. Without proper maintenance churches may face more serious repair problems and in some cases, this could lead to temporary closures. "

"Churches are community buildings, used by many different organisations and groups, so the closure of these buildings, for even just a few weeks, can have devastating consequences for the wider community."