UK – Adaptive reuse of church buildings

The Luxembourg newspaper L’Essentiel devoted an article to the adaptive reuse of church buildings in Great Britain. Faced with shrinking congregations and forced to find new uses for their buildings, the Anglican church nevertheless uses strict criteria for the conversion; every new use has to be accepted by a commission. “A church cannot host a family planning centre, or a sex shop, or a casino. A restaurant, maybe, if it isn’t called The Devil or something similar, but a pub, no”, head of the Church of England’s Closed Churches Division Jeremy Tipping explained. Other accepted uses include a climbing hall, a circus training centre, a supermarket, library, and a Sikh temple.

Read the full article in French here.