Madam,

I would like to take issue with some of the comments of Adrian Murphy, a trustee of the Diocese of Menevia.

He says the existing church of St Winefride’s in Aberystwyth was built ‘to a very poor standard’; yet it has lasted about 150 years, while that of the Welsh Martyrs, on which the diocese presumably spent a lot of money in its construction and which it now proposes to renovate, barely lasted 30 years before its deterioration was such that it had to be abandoned.

He also talks of subsidence. I don’t know if he has ever visited St Winefride’s, but the external walls of the church show no signs of the kind of cracks you would expect from subsidence.

The presbytery does on one corner, but that is something that could have been remedied by any responsible landlord by pinning the wall at a relatively low cost. This is something I have personal experience of as we had to do it with our own house.

He also talks about the use of massive steel tie rods. At between one and two inches in diameter, they do not seem massive to me.

In any event, they have done a good job over the last 100 years or so as the walls are vertical and show no ominous signs of bulging.

Finally he explains in parentheses that the Welsh Martyrs church was closed due to lack of use and cost of repair.

Does not that ‘lack of use’ give him pause for thought? Does it not occur to him that as well as erecting a thoroughly shoddy building, the diocese also chose a site that the majority of the parish did not want to go to?

Yours etc,

Miles Spink,

Trinity Road,

Aberystwyth.

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