Save The Parish - Cornwall

Penwith's much-discussed and delayed On The Way plan will be reviewed under the deanery's new Strategic Rural Dean, Rev. Adam Thomas, reports the October edition of Penwith Deanery News. A public meeting will be held at Paul Church Hall on Saturday 15 November to discuss this. At a deanery synod meeting on 29 September, Archdeacon Clive Hogger commissioned Rev Thomas - from the Land’s End Benefice and Paul Church as Strategic Rural Dean - and Rev Chris Butler of Madron, Gulval and Heamoor benefice, as Associate Strategic Rural Dean. Both were commissioned by the Archdeacon on behalf of the Bishop of Truro, for a term of five years.   In the newsletter, Rev Thomas says the review meeting is for anyone from all Deanery churches who wishes to attend and clearly sets out the reasons for holding it. "In Penwith the Deanery Plan has faltered," he writes, adding that the deanery now is very different to when the plan was written. Click here to read the most ...

West Briton, 2 October 2025 Controversy continues this week in Camborne, west Cornwall, as the local press published letters from present, and former, church goers  - the latter a couple who left after feeling they had been sidelined at Camborne Church. Congregations in surrounding churches - as well as Camborne - remain anxious and unsettled by the lack of clarity around the expensive Transforming Mission scheme running in the area - which has absorbed more than £750,000 of Church Commissioners' funds and Diocesan reserves since 2019. The exact figures are hard to establish as - despite repeated requests - local PCCs (Parochial Church Councils) have not had sight of either management, or operational, accounts - despite having been assured by the Rt Rev Hugh Nelson, Bishop of St Germans, that they have the right to see them.  In August, churchgoers from Camborne, Tuckingmill, Penponds, Treslothan and Crowan - dissuaded by senior figures in the Diocese from meeting at Cam...

   

The next Archbishop of Canterbury must be pro-parish churches, Admiral Sir James Burnell-Nugent writes in The Times this week ahead of the imminent announcement of Justin Welby's successor.  The Crown Nominations Commission needs to put forward a genuinely pro-parish successor to Justin Welby or thousands of churches will be at risk Click here to read the full article. 

As the annoucement of the next Archbishop of Canterbury approaches, Madeleine Davies asks in the Church Times whether it is time to review the drift towards managerialism Click here to read.

This week's local press in Cornwall picks up the current controversy over Transforming Mission - in Camborne and elsewhere in Cornwall . Headline: 'Campaigners want more transparency over church project' »A MISSION to attract more worshippers to Anglican churches has become an embarrassment to the Diocese of Truro, a campaign group has claimed. Save the Parish Cornwall (StPC) levelled the accusation following a meeting at which churchgoers from around Camborne attempted to find “a constructive way” out of the controversy caused by the Transforming Mission (TM) project. The plans for TM in the Camborne area envisaged expenditure of £750,000 between 2019 and 2025. The Church Commissioners have met 60% of its costs and the diocese has contributed 40% from its reserves, but StPC says there has been a lack of transparency. TM has also been rolled out in Falmouth, St Austell, Liskeard and Highertown. The diocese has agreed to an independent review of its finances, due...