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October 11, 2011

£500 to change a £2 lightbulb leaves churchgoers in the dark

A 14th-century village church in Cottingham, Yorkshire, has had to pay £500 to erect scaffolding to change the lightbulbs in its 30ft-high roof because of concerns over health and safety, which also prohibit the use of candles.

Speaking to the Hull Daily Mail, the rector of St Mary’s Church, Hallgate, Father Paul Smith, explained: “Because of health and safety rules now, people can’t take up a very long ladder to change the light when the tubes go. So every time we need to have some bulbs replaced, we hang on until a few need replacing before we get someone in with scaffolding.”

Father Smith said the church was quite a dark building in any case. “At the moment it’s very dark in the evenings because so many lights have gone,” he said. “We don’t want to get the scaffolding until it’s absolutely necessary, because we don’t want to be doing it every single time.”

The church is now considering installing an LED (light-emitting diode) lighting system, which has a longer lifetime so that lights would not have to be replaced as frequently.

Click here for the full story in the Hull Daily Mail.

 

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