Replacing the Lighting in St Mary's
CAN YOU HELP PLEASE? Following recent changes made by the government, St Mary’s Church can no longer recover £30,000 VAT for this project to replace the failing interior lighting. We need further financial support.
Cheques payable to Saffron Walden PCC (Then pop through Parish Office letter box or post to St Mary's Church, Church Path, Saffron Walden, CB10 1JP)
Online - Account name: Saffron Walden Parochial Church Council,
Sort code: 20-74-05
A/c No: 70787116
Reference: Lighting Project
Latest News
£20,000 Matched Funding - Our Replacement Lighting
We received the wonderful news at the start April that an anonymous donor has indicated that they will match £ for £ any funds raised from now until September. This includes sponsorship for Steve Hasler's cycle ride from Holyhead to Cardiff in May and any donations received and money from successful grant applications. If you are minded to donate to the project, any donation will be doubled until the full £20,000 is matched. Meanwhile the first grant application has been made to Friends of Essex Churches Trust and a number of others will follow in April and May.
Steve Halser's Cycle Ride: To help with this, Steve Hasler, who leads the project, will be cycling the “Lôn Las Cymru”, see map on right, a 4-day sponsored ride from 6th to 9th May 2025 through Wales from Holyhead to Cardiff : 253 miles and 16,500 feet of climbing in total. If you would like to sponsor Steve's cycle ride, sign-up sheets are on display at the back of St Mary’s or donate online using the above bank details. If you want to follow Steve's ride, you can do so at lonlascymrumay2025.blogspot.com which will be live nearer to the start date of 6th May and be updated with a report at the end of each day’s ride.
On 6th March, members of the Lighting Team interviewed the two contractors with the lowest bids and recommended to the March PCC that we appoint Tom Flynn Electrical to carry out the installation. Part of the final selection process was for the final two contractors to re-price the project to include some cost savings that we had identified. Both contractors are experienced in lighting work in churches of our size and in some of the cathedrals in the country. TFE were still the most cost effective and their price, before VAT, is now very close to the cost estimated by our Lighting Designer when he developed the initial concept design late in 2023 despite building cost inflation over the intervening 15 months. Unfortunately, mainly due to the change made by the government in February on how much VAT we can reclaim annually, we are now clear that our funding gap is £38,000. £28,000 of this is VAT that we can no longer reclaim.
At the March PCC, it was agreed to appoint TFE, to progress more fundraising and to start the installation in mid-September. PCC acknowledged that if we don’t have all the money required, the last parts of the project, which will probably be the north and south chapels, won’t get new lighting. However, we plan to avoid this and the matched funding will help a great deal.
On the installation, we are starting to get some information on the programme. The work will start in the side aisles on 15th September and it is hoped that the new lighting will be in place by the second half of October. The work in the side aisles will start with the removal of the existing lighting and the rigging up of some temporary lighting and a similar approach will be taken for each area of the church. The nave will be next and the target is to have this finished before the contractors take a break for Christmas from 10th December. When they return in January, they will tackle the chancel and sanctuary followed by the chapels and the project should finish in mid-March.
For now, it’s back to training for my cycle ride from Holyhead to Cardiff and working with our Fundraising Team to get a number of grant applications made.
Steve Hasler
Project Leader
April 6th, 2025
Prayers for the Lighting Project
Please also support the project with your prayers.
“We are responsible for this wonderful building and are fortunate to use it for our worship and for it to be used by the wider community, by local schools, for music concerts, and to welcome many visitors each year, both from nearby and from all over the world. With this responsibility comes the need to maintain it in good condition, and to ensure that its facilities continue to support and enhance our worship and welcome in keeping with its grade I, national status.” Rev'd Jeremy Trew.
Here is a pdf of the presentation about the Lighting Project.
You can discover some more information about the project in advance of these meetings by scrolling down or by clicking on these links:
Why are we progressing this project?
Our main altar, dim and only half lit
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The existing lighting was installed in the 1970s and is now failing. It is not so much that the bulbs are failing but the units and system into which they are fitted. Much of the nave lighting has failed and the chancel and sanctuary are now particularly poorly lit. In the south aisle you may have noticed that the statues are now either green or yellow! Unless we replace the system, we will be back to using candles,
doing nothing is not an option.
We are proposing a new design, moving to low energy LEDs, to enhance all the activities and services in every part of the church. An improved atmosphere will highlight the architecture of our magnificent church, improving both our worship and the welcome we offer.
Nave uplighters north side, only 1 of 6 still works
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On winter Sundays, when the lights are on for at least 6 hours, we consume enough electricity to boil 400 domestic kettles! The lighting is the single biggest user of electricity in the church, and is a bill we could reduce by up to £2,000 pa. This would cut our carbon footprint and be a considerable step along the way to become a net carbon zero church, in line with the target set by
General Synod.
There will also be a very significant reduction in the maintenance costs of the current system. Currently a team of at least 6 people have to replace all of the bulbs every 5 years. An LED system of this quality should only require that sort of maintenance every 25 years!
Progress so far
With the agreement of our PCC, the team started to assess the lighting in 2022, developing a Statement of Needs, a Liturgical Statement and an assessment of all the other uses of the church by the wider community of Saffron Walden. A Project Brief was generated and sent to 5 Lighting Designers to request a proposal and cost estimate for a Concept Lighting Design for St Mary’s.
Team members then visited 6 reference projects and the PCC then approved the appointment of CBG Light Perceptions, headed by Bruce Kirk. Bruce has designed the lighting in many cathedrals around the country including recently at St George’s Chapel Windsor.
Bruce’s Concept Design can be seen in 6 videos clips, each 2 minutes long, which show the look and feel of the proposed lighting. Click on each one to play. Each video shows part of the church, first in daylight and then in darkness, followed by the effect of turning on the various proposed new sets of lights. The labels on the right of most slides should help.
Nave Facing East - Wide View
Nave Facing East - Close View
Nave Facing West
Chancel
Remembrance Chapel
North Chapel
Funding and Fundraising
Due to the sheer size of St Mary’s, our own funds will be insufficient to pay for the design and installation. A Fundraising Team have started researching possible Trusts and Foundations so that we can make applications as soon as the project costs are finalised. The Fundraising Team are also considering whether Crowd Funding might work.
Some legacies and other donations have been given for improvements to the fabric of the church, and are restricted for these uses rather than the mission and day-to-day running of the church. The lighting project will not use funds donated through our stewardship scheme or pledged to the Stewardship Campaign earlier this year, which are explicitly for the day-to-day needs of the church.
St Mary’s church is a building of national significance so we hope that funders who support the heritage of our nation will contribute significantly to the cost of the project.
The Lighting Team
Please feel free to approach any members of the Lighting Team with any questions you may have:
• Steve Hasler - Project Leader
• Barbara Flaxman – Congregation member and Team Secretary
• Edward Gildea – Eco Church representative
• Paula Griffiths – Retired member of our clergy team, with previous career in church buildings
• Simon Potter – Churchwarden
• Denis Tindley – former Churchwarden and Chair of Property Committee
• Noel Starr – Church Choir representative