This small Grade II listed Victorian church lacked running water and kitchen and toilet facilities. The petitioners sought a faculty permitting the removal of the organ from the base of the tower for its disposal on the basis that kitchen and toilet facilities would then be introduced into that space. The organ was built for the church shortly after the church's construction and, although it had been adapted over the years, it remained a significant instrument in its original location and substantially in its original form. The organ had not been used for a number of years. No regular organist was available. The petitioners’ original proposals included the plans for the new kitchen and toilet facilities but, on the advice of the Diocesan Advisory Committee (DAC), the parish only sought permission for the removal and disposal of the organ at this stage. The DAC organ adviser and the Church Buildings Council raised concerns about the moving or loss of the instrument. The DAC did not object to the proposed works subject to provisos that the organ only be removed to another place of worship where it would be used and that it be kept in as close a condition as possible to its current specification.

The chancellor expressed the view that those provisos were not realisable in practice. There was no way of ensuring that the organ would either be played or remain unchanged in any future home. The chancellor applied the Duffield guidelines to the question of whether the organ should be disposed of. He found that the harm caused to the special significance of the building by the proposal would be at the lower end of moderate harm. In balancing the harm and the justification for the works, the chancellor acknowledged that the risk of parishes disposing of their treasures simply because they were not needed was not a fanciful one. Nevertheless, this was not a case where the parish viewed the organ simply as an asset to turn into cash; the parish needed to make space to provide facilities which hardly needed any justification. Other locations for the new facilities had been considered and the chancellor was satisfied that the base of the tower was the best location. The faculty was granted on condition that the organ remain in situ until the petitioners had permission from the court to install the proposed kitchen and toilet facilities, had the means to carry the scheme through and a buyer for the organ had been found and terms agreed. The permission would be time-limited to two years on the basis that if terms for the disposal of the organ had not been agreed in that time it was unlikely that they would be so agreed. [RA]