Access to Places of Worship

Blake Stephenson, the Member of Parliament (MP) for Mid Bedfordshire, asked what steps the Church is taking with developers and local authorities to ensure that residents in new towns and villages have access to places of worship. Marsha De Cordova, the responding MP, explained that local authorities are not currently required to consider the building of new places of worship, but they are permitted to include them among a range of community buildings in a development. She stated that where local authorities do include places of worship, the Church Commissioners seek to promote these facilities. In a follow-up, Stephenson emphasized that development should be about building places and communities where people can live fulfilling lives, not just building houses, and that places of worship play an important role in that. He asked De Cordova to work with Ministers to ensure that the Government's new towns commission incorporates the creation of places of worship in new towns. De Cordova responded that the Church Commissioners are very much invested in place-making and are seeking a meeting with the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government to discuss the Church's strategic land and the potential to build up to 70,000 new homes. She also mentioned that the diocese of St Albans has several good examples of how the Church is contributing to community-building in the Mid Bedfordshire constituency, and she promised to write to Stephenson with further details.