From Mr Anthony Jennings
Sir, - Maggie Durran's article "Sixteenth-century parsonage"
(Gazette, 8 February)
requires correction. She says that the dioceses "took over
ownership of all clergy houses" some time ago. This is not so. The
incumbent has always owned the parsonage. This is still the case
under the recent Clergy Terms of Service legislation.
The matter of the ownership of the clergy house was fully
debated in the General Synod, and the resulting legislation makes
no change to the incumbent's status in that respect.
People are often under the misapprehension that parsonage houses
are owned by the dioceses, and it serves the purpose of dioceses
seeking to sell off parsonages against the wishes of local
communities.
If you sell off an asset such as a parsonage, you do not "recoup
value", as Maggie Durran suggests: you lose it. Parsonages should
be kept by the Church and let out.
ANTHONY JENNINGS
Director, Save Our Parsonages
Flat Z, 12-18 Bloomsbury Street
London WC1B 3QA