Yesterday the Government made a major announcement on £1.5bn funding for arts and culture (press release here, ministerial statement here).
It has also clarified the future of its funding for places of worship. This note sets out the facts as we understand them.
Summary for listed places of worship:
- The Listed Places of Worship Grant Scheme (LPWGS, for VAT recovery) will permanently close at the end of March this year (2026) or when the budget for the year is spent, whichever is earlier
- It will be replaced by a new capital funding scheme for listed places of worship. This is called the Places of Worship Renewal Fund. The ministerial statement is here.
- Unlike the LPWGS, the new scheme applies to England only. It will be delivered by Historic England.
- It will run for four years from 2026/27
- It will have a total pot of £92m. The new Renewal Fund will thus average £23m a year
- The Renewal Fund will be ‘focusing on repair and conservation work’
Note on the size of the Renewal Fund. The annual average of the Renewal Fund at £23m per annum is the same as the current (final) year of the UK-wide LPWGS, when it was capped at that figure. Previously the LPWGS was uncapped, and for example in 2024/5 it provided £29m UK wide, of which an estimated £25m would have been claimed by places of worship in England. There has long been an annual ceiling of £42m for the LPWGS, though this ceiling was never reached.
No action is required at the moment, EXCEPT if you are planning to recover VAT by using the Listed Places of Worship Grant Scheme, we advise you to apply as soon as possible. The deadline for final applications is 23:59 on 31 March 2026, but the scheme will close earlier if the money runs out. There is useful guidance on process and timings for closure here.
We will, of course, keep you posted as we learn more about the Places of Worship Renewal Fund, and we hope to work with DCMS and Historic England in developing the details of the scheme.
PUBLICATION OF REPORT
In parallel with this announcement, the Government has issued the Evaluation of the Listed Places of Worship Grant Scheme (LPWGS), which so many of you contributed to by filling in a questionnaire last year.
We haven’t yet had a chance to read it, but we noticed one striking statistic – that in 85% of cases, the LPWGS made a difference. Only in 15% of cases would the same works have been carried out in the same way at the same time without the LPWGS. So, as the report says, ‘in most cases the grant [was] contributing directly to securing more repair and maintenance to listed places of worship [than would otherwise have been the case]’.
No surprises there, but it is perhaps an appropriate epitaph to a much-loved grant scheme.