Churchgoers are right to hit the roof over lead

Remus Tudorache was jailed for five years this week for stealing lead worth £100,000 from the roofs of rural English churches. One of his thefts was discovered shortly before a funeral. Mourners at St Mary’s in Baconsthorpe, Norfolk, had to attend the service with rain pouring in. It was the second time Tudorache’s gang had targeted the church. Elderly parishioners who had raised over £100,000 to replace the first lot of lead wept when they discovered that all their good work had been undone.

This poignant little story caught my eye because I recently came across a village where volunteers did battle for a year with Historic England over the right to re-roof their church – which has repeatedly been pillaged – with a polymer (synthetic non-metal roofing material). The advantage of the polymer is that it looks like lead but has no scrap value to rogues. The listed manor house next to the church had already used it, and was left untouched when the blighters came back to help themselves.

Breaking the cycle of crime with a polymer roof was a “no-brainer”, as one churchwarden put it. Except the village hadn’t factored in the bossyboots at Historic England who objected to the polymer re-roofing because, among other complaints, it wasn’t a “high status” material.

And this despite the fact that no one, apart from passing flocks of birds, would see the roofs in question, which are flat and hidden behind a parapet.

Such official obduracy really matters. Lead theft from

churches is a national problem. Last year, there were 49 in Norfolk alone. Church of England buildings are a sitting duck for organised gangs.

As an exasperated volunteer, wholeheartedly supported by the vicar, told me: “I thought it was one of Historic England’s tenets that keeping the building in use – in this case, for worship – is the best way to safeguard its future. We wasted a year challenging them. It felt as if we were educating them about modern roofing.”

Here we see the listedbuilding mentality in all its short-sightedness. Churches are spending money they don’t have replacing lead roofs when, instead, their funds could be doing practical good. Some churches, which have fallen victim of multiple thefts, end up closing altogether.

Happily, this tenacious village won permission to use the polymer and break the distressing cycle of thefts. Like the Almighty, Historic England moves in mysterious ways. Nice to know that, on this occasion at least, they ended up with the peace that passeth all understanding.