Green first steps

A meeting this afternoon at church, with representatives of the Diocesan Advisory Committee, the Church in Wales Representative Body Properties Officer, and three of us from St John's looked for the first time at the proposal we have in mind to spend some of the revenue form the sale of St James on geothermal heating for the church. It's been an idea buzzing around in my mind for a couple of years at least, but with another steep rise in prices calling into question the economic sustainability of the church's presence at the heart of the city, and the sad if providential legacy of available funding, there is an opportunity to be explored.

Thankfully, an internet trawl came up with several companies with expertise in this area, so I emailed them on Monday. By this morning, one of them had responded with interest and a degree of cautious optimism about taking this a few steps forward with a preliminary feasibility study. I was pleased to have a reply in hand to share with the meeting, as it ensured the response wasn't just theoretical, although initially, the matter of church general policy on this matter is important, since we're wanting to spend money held in trust for the Parish, and have to make a sound case to support our proposal. Also we need support in relation to CADW, whose conservation opinions are important, since they have put money into the building before. Even though we're not asking them for funding, support from them will assist any match funding bids we may need to make.

Fortunately, the Bishops are giving a lead in encouraging green projects in relation to churches, and considerations of sustainability are becoming part of the thinking, albeit late in the day. How much better off we'd be now with fewer buildings to manage if this had happened before the 19th century rash of church building took place! If I can move St John's along the route towards being a zero carbon footprint building by the time I retire, I'll depart with a degree ofcontentment.

Our friend Artie arrived at tea time, and I met her at the station. As I had a meeting of the Council Planning committe's conservation consultative group straight after, we agreed to eat when I returned afterwards. However, the meeting went on for twice as long as usual, so Clare and Artie had eaten by the time I eventually arrived. The meeting agenda was of particular interesting due to the presentation of a building application by the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama on North Road. Since their link-up with the University of Glamorgan the College has secured funding to build its own concert auditorium and another performance space, on the existing site and enclosing the existing buildings.

The design phase has now produced model of the site, which is available for inspection in City Hall. Unlike earlier auditorium plans this design does not intrude into Bute Park but stays entirely on this side of the Dock Feeder Canal. That should make a lot of people happy. It's also a good use of the existing site. All consultative group members thought favourably about the design. It promises to enhance the site in a way the present buildings fail to. One can drive past and hardly notice they're there. When it's built, it will be a truly eye catching addition to Cathays Park complex of pubic buildings.

Variety is the spice of ministry

An eventful day, starting with a school assembly on John the Baptist, followed by a Eucharist at St German's for class three, then down to St John's for our midday Eucharist. There was a enough time to do a little housekeeping on the literature distribution rack - folding dozens of tourist and enquiry leaflets - before cycling over to Roath Church House for a Deanery Chapter. It's the first I've managed to attend in many many months.

At the end we were shown a video produced by the Church in Wales' ministry and mission team entitled 'Renewable Energy'. It was not, as I imagined environmental conservation focussed, but a series of video case studies of a series of Parishes which are experiencing a missionary renewal in the most enterprising and creative of ways. It was encouraging and informative. It was also very well produced, and made Chapter a cheerier meeting than usual.

Before supper, a meeting of the Conservation Consultative Group that advises on planning applications in the City Centre. It's the first since the local government elections. I was pleased to learn that Simon Wakefield, our local Lib-Dem Councillor in Cathays is available and willing to chair the group again. It's always interesting to look at what plans are being proposed to build or adapt buildings around the city centre, and hear from the experts what they think about the ideas presented.

On this occasion we looked at drawings accompanying a proposition to re-open the mill leet on the west side of the Castle Wall. The leet is a watercourse which, at least in Victorian times was adapted to drive a small mill-wheel, long gone. It was fed originally by the dock feeder canal that runs through the castle grounds and out along Stuttgart Strasse. There's an ancient well by the north west corner of the Castle, which apparently has some interesting Victorian hydraulic control mechanisms relating to the leet. All in all this restoration project promises much more than a water feature to enhance the Castle and parkland considerably. It has the engineers archaeologists and historical conservationists excited and keen to promote it - which is just as well since the plan is part of Heritage Lottery funding bid. I hope this comes off.

Building diplomacy

.

Met this afternoon with our church architect, Martin Killick and an officer from CADW, the Welsh conservation quango. The idea was to find out where the no-go areas might be in proposing changes to certain aspects of our grade one listed building.

We want to make the building more visitor friendly, as it is one of the place most visited by tourists to Cardiff - at least 15,000 a year. The west porch doesn't work. It is uninviting, difficult to negotiate with a pushchairs or laden with bags, and has an internal which step people trip over with worrying frequency due to poor sight lines rather than lighting deficiency. We want to remove the porch and have state of the art glass doors and glazed panels under the tower, to make it all lighter more open and inviting. We also dream of moving pews to side aisles from the back of the nave, then raise the floor to lose the dangerous step, and create a welcome area in which we can hold exhibitions, and greet people before services - maybe even an information desk, who knows what may work best for all, at this stage?

The south church entrance is paved with gravestones, and would benefit from being re-laid with a single consistent regular surface, as it becomes uneven in only a few years of wear and tear, as the stones are all of different thickness. How we haven't had a bad accident out there I don't know. Very soon now the passageway between the churchyards will be laid with new granite paving which eventually will cover streets on all sides of the church. I am hoping we will be able to replace the gravestones with the same paving. The surrounds would all look good then - a worthy setting for such a fine building.

Fortunately the CADW man didn't seem to think any of our ideas run contrary to the received conservation doctrine, so it's now a matter of drawing up plans and preparing more faculty applications to get permission to do the work. Knowing that support from CADW is possible to obtain for sensible plans easer the way to get a faculty approved. The number of such faculties I've applied for in the past four years runs into dozens. It's not a task I'll ever enjoy, only improve at doing well.