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Water Charges for Churches
At the present time we pay a nominal charge in respect of Water Rates for our Churches and Church Halls. However, water companies (in our case United Utilities) are changing to a system whereby they will treat churches as commercial undertakings and levy charges related to the total site area. This will also be applied to schools and you may have seen articles concerning this in the Evening Gazette a few months ago.
The first churches to be assessed in this way are those that have a water meter, which fortunately we do not. Costs will increase many-fold to such an extent that some churches have already indicated they would have to close. Representations have been made to OFFWAT but they support the water companies’ approach.
An online petition has been organised with the following wording “We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to instruct water companies to return to charging churches as charities rather than business premises”. It is important that as many people as possible sign online or petition their own MP. The web address is:-
http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/ChurchWaterBills/
The petition has been set up through the Association of Church Accountants and Treasurers and is open until early December. If you have access to the internet please consider adding your support to it.
This article has been adapted from the ACAT newsletter for July.
Robert Sly
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