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LONDON: Church's £1billion property boom
By Ruth Gledhill and Jonathan Wynne-Jones
THE LONDON TIMES
LONDON (3/31/2005)--THE Church of England has made £100 million a year from property sales in the past ten years. The latest, the Church Commissioners headquarters at No 1 Millbank, in London, was sold for £65 million to the House of Lords.
The Church Commissioners, who manage £4.3 billion of Church assets accumulated since Queen Anne's property donation in 1704, achieved a 13.6 per cent return on investments last year, placing the fund in the top 3 per cent of more than 700 similar funds.
The Church's success will be celebrated by bishops but could lead to anger in parishes, where worshippers face big increases in their parish "share", or voluntary tax, to fund an institution that they understood was in a state of financial crisis.
Since the commissioners lost £800 million from asset values in the 1980s property crash, churchgoers have had to pay more than ever towards clergy stipends and are contributing to pensions as well. The burden facing some poorer parishes could be eased as a result of the above-average performance of Church property.
The commissioners are able to return £35 million more to the Church annually than if the investments had performed at the industry average. But parishes judged to be wealthy are still facing increased demands.
Eric Price, a retired company director and treasurer of a small parish in the Liverpool Diocese, where the parish share increased last year by 29 per cent to £35,000, said: "We have not paid the increase.
"They have said we are in arrears. Wealthier parishes are having to pay more to subsidise the weaker ones. It is Christian thinking, but if they are not careful, the stronger parishes will end up becoming as weak as the weak ones."
Hundreds of parishes face similar burdens, on top of crippling bills for repairs to listed buildings and for alterations to meet requirements for disabled access and other needs.
Rising parish share demands come after property sales of £1 billion in the past decade, and before the sale of No 1 Millbank, a Grade II listed building designed by William Caro and built on land that belonged to Westminster Abbey. Earlier sales include a 90 per cent interest in the MetroCentre, Gateshead, in 1995; the remainder of the US portfolio and a 50 per cent interest in the St Enoch Shopping Centre, Glasgow, in 1996; Magna Park, in Lutterworth, in 1998; Colmore Gate in Birmingham, in 1999; and further property in London and Glasgow in 2003 and last year.
When No 1 Millbank opened in 1906 it had one of the first lifts in an English office building. Its staff will move out in 2007 to nearby Church House, headquarters of the General Synod.
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