The petitioner sought a faculty for the erection of a memorial over the grave of his mother and wife. The petition was opposed by the Parochial Church Council (PCC), churchwardens and incumbent on the basis that the memorial fell outside the diocesan churchyard regulations. The shape included a Celtic cross which sat higher than the main part of the headstone. The chancellor considered recent decisions of the consistory courts, including Re St Peter, Church Lawford [2016] ECC Cov 3 and Re St John the Baptist, Adel [2016] ECC Lee 8, and asked himself whether something exceptional needed to be shown in order for a faculty to permit a memorial outside the regulations. He rejected that requirement and preferred the approach of Hill Ch in Adel that the regulations did not set the parameters of acceptability and taste, but rather amounted to a simple administrative mechanism for approving uncontroversial memorials. All that was required was that the chancellor considered the proposal for a memorial which fell outside the regulations to be suitable.

In advising the chancellor on this petition, the Diocesan Advisory Committee (DAC) had initially not objected to the works, but had changed its position to one of objection when it discovered the position of the incumbent and PCC on the issue. The chancellor expressed the view that the DAC should only change its advice if a new factor was discovered. The views of the PCC and incumbent did not amount to such a new factor. Those views were available to the chancellor elsewhere and the DAC existed to provide an independent evaluation of the artistic and other features of the petition in the context of this particular churchyard. [RA]