The petitioners had obtained a faculty for a re-ordering, subject to conditions as to the un-upholstered chairs to be used, with liberty to apply (judgment at [2016] ECC Lee 1). As the work approached completion, the incumbent (not in office at the time of the earlier petition) sought permission to vary the faculty to permit the installation of upholstered chairs. She also indicated that resources did not allow for the purchase of all the chairs required.

As to the lateness of the application, the court observed that it was poor practice to implement certain works authorised by faculty and then apply to vary the faculty so as to change or exclude other elements. A faculty was table d'hôte, not à la carte; permission was given for a suite of works to be implemented holistically, not on a pick-and-mix basis. As to the funding difficulties, the court was concerned that at such a very late stage an application should be made to it to vary a faculty because a parish could not afford to complete the works which have been authorised. A prudent Parochial Church Council should never embark upon a project when they lacked the funds – either in hand or promised – to complete it.

The request for a variation of the faculty was rejected. To allow such a variation so late in the implementation of the faculty would be to break faith with the basis upon which the consultation took place, the manner in which it was put before the Diocesan Advisory Committee and the way in which the petition was originally advanced. The court was tolerably confident that, had the original petition proceeded on the basis of upholstered chairs for the nave, it would have failed earlier in the process. It would be inappropriate, verging on an abuse of process, to allow such chairs now after the event, when the whole re-ordering scheme would not have been approved had upholstered chairs been proposed when the original petition was lodged. [DW]