St John's the Divine - went to the meeting and met up with a few people I had 'met' on e-mail via my website. A judge was present and he was asking people to 'swear' an oath if they wanted to get up to speak.
Basically the meeting was full of suits who could have bought the church with their own money but would rather give silly reasons why the church should be demolished (including saying that because most of the congretation were on the redun-dance, they couldn't afford the upkeep of the building!!).
Anyway, I got up and presented my case, I told them of a similar case (st James, West Derby) in which the tower was capped - and then also told them of the loss of many churches for 'unsafe' reasons including Emmannuell Everton which was demolished for being unsafe - and turned out that they wanted the new Ring Road to run through the church - it didn't happen but we lost the church.
The Judge is going to be making a decision on the church and if he hands it a demolition order then when the insurance runs out, it'll go - simple as that.
However, he made the mistake of offering to anyone that has an idea to save the church, to go ahead and contact him/PCC.
Quite simple - the PCC own the church and they would only get £55,000 back from the sale of the land to pay off debts - and they lose the church.
So in the last two days, I have been busting a gut to get a few legal people on board with my idea and have already sent an e-mail out to the required people with my idea - to sell the church 'as is'.
Due to my strange bell ringing hobby, I spend hours in churches and get to meet lots of people who want to own their own church, but are stumped because most of them are listed so they can do little with it.
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I have informed the authorities that I will construct a website out of my own pocket, if they will allow me to take photo's of all area's inside of the church, the cost of buying the church/land, and various questions for addresses of legal people with the PCC and authorites.
I will then construct a website and act as an estate agent to market the sale of the church in the next couple of weeks and try to find a buyer who would take this project on (I know many people who also know many people that this would interest). I've told the church authorites that I do not wish for a cut from this, but saving the church will do me. I've also told them that I do not 'do' red tape and should they not get back to me as soon as possible, then I will see it as an obstruction and speak to the press about the situation (who have already given front pages up for the plight so far).
This way, someone comes along who wants a church that isn't listed, the church is saved, the PCC get their money and we get our church on the route in to Liverpool.
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