The petitioners sought a faculty to demolish one hall, to re-configure another hall and to demolish an unlisted Victorian Gothic villa called Holmleigh, in order to build a new two-storey church centre. Planning permission had been granted. There were a substantial number of objections, including from the Victorian Society and the Church Buildings Council (CBC); 14 parties opponent were joined. The matter came before the consistory court on the preliminary issue of whether Holmleigh was within the curtilage of the church and therefore within the faculty jurisdiction. The chancellor determined that Holmleigh was within the church's curtilage. The parties opponent then argued that the planning committee's decision was wrong, as, if it was part of the church's curtilage, it shared the church's listing rather than being a separate, undesignated building and fell to be treated under different planning considerations. The chancellor, applying Re St Mary's Churchyard, White Waltham (No 2) [2010] Fam 146, held that it was legitimate to proceed on the basis that, even if within the church's curtilage, Holmleigh itself was an unlisted building and that the planning decision was correct. He emphasised that the faculty jurisdiction was not an appeal from the planning tribunal.

The chancellor held that the demolition of Holmleigh would not cause harm to the church's historic or architectural significance, although it would cause some moderate detriment to the aesthetic significance of the group of buildings as a whole. That detriment was outweighed by the benefit likely to arise from the new building. Objections based on environmental impact, disruption from noise and traffic, inadequate consultation or consideration of the alternatives and the impact on the church's appearance were all rejected and the faculty was granted.

An application for leave to appeal out of time to the Chancery Court of York was granted, following the erroneous service of the initial application on the Court of Arches. The ground upon which leave was granted was the question of whether the chancellor acted wrongly or unjustly at the hearing, in allowing late amendments to the works proposed, without an adjournment to enable public notice of the changes, particularly to the Victorian Society and CBC, or to allow the parties opponent to bring evidence about the effect of the amendments on the contested proposals. In granting leave, the auditor observed that, despite the frequent practice of allowing amendments to petitions, there was no ecclesiastical jurisprudence on the issue of whether there should be further consultation on minor amendments. Although on the facts it was questionable whether the appeal had a ‘real prospect of success’, given that the amendments were relatively minor, the issue was important enough to afford ‘some other compelling reason why the appeal should be heard’. [Catherine Shelley]

Since publication of the Auditor's judgment on the application for leave, the appellants have decided not to pursue their appeal.