St Dubricius Porlock InSpired Project Update February 2026

Our delivery phase application to the Heritage Lottery is slowly coming together. Our architects and Quantity Surveyor having been working on the technical aspects, with surveys, drawings and specifications all done. We have tendered the work and received bids which are currently being assessed. If we get the lottery grant, we hope work will start in the Autumn. It has to start by mid November, otherwise there is a risk that Bats will have taken up residence for hibernation in the spire and work will not be permitted to start until the following spring. We and our teams have also been building plans for heritage based community activities, with several local organisations. The documents are all nearing their final draft stages and the application has to be submitted by 26th February.

But as usual money is the big concern. Read on to see why.

Our Development phase application in February 2024 had to include a cost estimate for the entire project, a little over £1.55million, and a budget to show where all the money would come from. The lottery very seldom fund 100% of a project. We proposed that we would aim to raise £100,000 from other trusts and foundations. We planned to recover £200,000 VAT through a long running scheme that allows all listed places of worship to claim a government funded grant to cover VAT spent on repairs. So we expected to be asking the lottery for about £1.25million. Then in the Autumn 2024 budget the chancellor announced that the scheme would be capped at £25,000 per building from April 2025, and no funding was confirmed to be available beyond April 2026. Suddenly we were short of £175,000, or maybe £200,000. And of course the overall cost has increased as the details were worked, and now stands at £1.7million. So that’s another £150,000k to find from somewhere.

The lottery recognise the problem and are sympathetic, but of course we are not the only ones with a sudden big funding gap. The drastic restriction to the VAT refund scheme affects every imminent or ongoing project for a listed place of worship, whether church, mosque, temple etc. and many of them are already or hope to be lottery funded too.

In our discussions with the lottery they asked us to consider how much additional money we could hope to raise, and after a lot of head scratching we said we would try for £50,000. So that is what we are now doing. We have held a few fundraising events already, and more are planned, and we have had a few very generous individual donations, but we are a long way off the target yet.

Once our application is in there is a four month assessment period, then the main committee meet to decide whether to approve or reject our application. We will be able to submit a finance update shortly before that meeting, telling them how much we have managed to raise. Then we have to wait and see, firstly whether they like our application, and secondly whether they are prepared to fund the balance, now around £1.55million. The more we raise the better chance we have that they will fund the rest??

Any contribution will be much appreciated. Big donations are great, but lots of little ones add up too. You can donate directly using any of the methods described on 'Ways to Donate' document.

Porlock with Stoke Pero PCC is a registered charity in England and Wales No. 1215388