The petitioners wished to install a new gas boiler in the church to replace its inefficient and unreliable system. They took the Church of England's target of carbon neutrality by 2030 seriously. However, while there was a more carbon-neutral alternative of electric boilers running on electricity from renewable sources, whose installation costs would be comparable, the running costs would be around five times greater than those of the proposed gas boiler. At the subsequent replacement of the new boiler in 2035, the parish would be better able to take advantage of emerging technologies, when carbon-neutral options would be widely available and affordable.

The court reiterated its approach in Re St Michael and All Angel, Blackheath Park [2020] ECC Swk 5 that petitioners would be expected to consider their contribution to the carbon neutrality target, but decisions about carbon neutrality should be taken at the parish level. It was not for chancellors to seek to impose solutions through the clumsy mechanism of refusing otherwise acceptable proposals. But it did seem that, absent new technology coming to the rescue, the effect of a whole series of decisions like the one in the present case was likely to lead to the 2030 target being missed. The court considered that this should be addressed in the guidance given to parishes by the national Church about the achievement of carbon neutrality and how they should address competing priorities in the formulation of their budgets. [DW]