SPAB’s Maintaining Scotland's Churches project has secured £14,000 a year for three years from Historic Environment Scotland, marking our first ever multi-year funded project in Scotland and a significant step forward in our work supporting Scotland’s historic church buildings.
The funding builds on the success of SPAB’s Church Maintenance Days pilot in 2024–25, which trained 63 participants and received overwhelmingly positive feedback. With this new financial support, the project will expand its reach across Scotland, offering practical, accessible training to those responsible for caring for church buildings—particularly within the Church of Scotland, where many buildings are currently at heightened risk. Churches of all denominations are welcome to take part.
The programme focuses on buildings that remain in active or reimagined community use, helping to ensure they continue to serve as valued local resources. Specialist-led maintenance days will give participants the confidence to carry out routine care, commission repairs wisely and make informed, cost-effective decisions that prevent long-term deterioration. Six events a year will be delivered nationally, with additional collaborative sessions planned with partner organisations.
Alongside the training programme, SPAB will refresh and redesign its maintenance guidance, creating clearer, more accessible resources that support churches year-round. By combining good maintenance practice with sensible approaches to carbon reduction, the project will help churches—and the communities around them—care for their buildings sustainably, responsibly and with confidence.
The Maintaining Scotland's Churches project is launching against a challenging backdrop, with the Listed Places of Worship VAT Grant Scheme due to close and be replaced by a successor programme that Scottish projects will not be eligible to apply for. This change removes a key source of financial support for repairs, placing greater pressure on those responsible for caring for Scotland’s historic church buildings.
Tyler Lott Johnston, Chair of SPAB Scotland, says, 'Many listed churches are architecturally, culturally and socially significant far beyond their use for worship, and are central to local identity and place. The loss of VAT recovery has wide consequences, will place immediate additional pressure on already stretched maintenance and repair budgets and will reduce the scope for planned, preventative care—the very approach that SPAB Scotland, Historic Environment Scotland and others have long championed as the most effective and economical way of safeguarding historic buildings.'
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