Warning: the potential effects of clergy cuts on communities' mental health

Many thanks to Jonathan Harradine, from Penwith Deanery, who has drawn our attention to You Are Not Alone in Feeling Lonely, a recent report by Age UK. Mr Harradine is a Research Fellow at York University in the Health Sciences Faculty, which contributed to this report. Its message is particularly relevant as 'Oversight Ministers' - clergy overseeing ever larger numbers of parishes - become an increasing reality in Cornwall. Isolation leads to mental health issues: people need local contact, the report says. Click here to read it.

"I think the insights in this report highlight the need for the Church to recognise that it is not supporting its parishioners and its communities adequately in this important area for our Health and Wellbeing,"  Mr Harradine says.  He believes it is particularly important to consider this ahead of the upcoming Penwith Deanery Planning Day (15th November) and the review of Penwith's On The Way Deanery Plan.  Local clergy recently acknowledged that the original plan - drawn up some years ago and never fully implemented - had 'faltered'.
 
"I’d like to suggest that, as a Church Community in Penwith, we include these insights in our thinking and our prayers - as part of the development of our Strategic Plan for the region," Mr Harradine suggests.
 
His work focuses particularly on the mental health and  wellbeing of people in later life - particularly the elderly, infirm, vulnerable and lonely.  The team at York University - headed by Professor Simon Gilbody - made a major contribution to the Age UK report.
 
Mr Harradine's comments echo those of James Oliver, a doctor in Mullion who wrote to the Church Times about just these issues in 2022. Click here to read his letter.  Mullion, on the Lizard peninsular, is part of Kerrier Deanery which - if the Diocese of Truro's On The Way reorganisation plans go through - will be left with just two stipendiary clergy covering an area from the Lizard to Germoe.

5 November 2025


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