THE church of St John the Baptist in Wellington has been left with a bill for £27,600 following the theft of lead from the choir vestry roof earlier this year.

The entire cost of repairs is £41,600, of which the church has received £9,000 from its insurer and £5,000 from a grant, leaving the church to find the rest.

The gang involved in stealing lead from churches all over the country has appeared in court and is awaiting sentencing.

The Rev Selina Garner, team vicar and missioner in the Wellington and district team missionary, said: “We’ve got to refurbish the whole vestry.

“Once we’ve fixed the roof we’ve got to make good all the damage – there are mushrooms growing out of the wall.

“It means a group of relatively elderly volunteers now have to raise vast sums and deal with all sorts of stakeholders to restore a damaged heritage building, which takes time and energy and all of our resources when we’re wanting to support local schools and nursing homes and the elderly and isolated and food banks.

“It drains us away from really what the church is there for.”

The local church is seeking to raise money through the charity JustGiving.

The theft of lead from churches has become big business with gangs able to strip a roof overnight. The Church of England says that the impact of Covid-19 has been to delay and make more difficult many repair projects which had been planned for this year.