Campaigning DOES work: opposition stops mega-parish scheme in Winchester

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Save The Parish's Emma Thompson describes how a mega-parish re-organisation scheme has  been rejected in Winchester - thanks to local objections

Anyone interested in opposing radical pastoral re-organisation schemes might be interested in reading about the below:  proposals for pastoral reorganisation affecting the benefices of Pastrow; and Appleshaw, Kimpton, Thruxton, Fyfield and Shipton Bellinger. 
 
https://www.churchofengland.org/sites/default/files/2022-11/mpcp2233_pastrow_appleshaw_paper_complete.pdf

This was in Winchester Diocese, where villages were threatened with a mega-parish.
On page 2, the bases are set out on which the Church Commissioners scrutinised the proposals.
Annex R contains the representations that were made. There are some potentially useful grounds for challenge in there - which could be very relevant for Cornwall.

The report has now come out from the Church Commissioners of their decision in this case. Click here to read.  The Committee determined that only the proposed union of parishes in relation to the Pastrow benefice (and associated matters in relation to that) should be allowed to proceed.

One of the representers writes:

"I am deliriously happy. They say it should NOT go ahead and the Rectory should NOT be sold.
Our neighbours who did not complain, and were brow-beaten into ‘agreement’, will still have their circa 10 PCCs merged into one horrible, unaccountable PCC.
There’s a good message for STP to put out there from this: you can stop these things if you try hard enough.
And if you don’t, you have to expect the consequences."

I look forward to similar reversals occurring in Truro Diocese.

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