The petitioners sought a faculty for extensive works to paths in and adjacent to the churchyard to improve safety and accessibility, together with archaeological investigations of an Anglo-Saxon church, adjacent to the existing church, believed to have been constructed by Queen Ethelburga and containing her tomb. Following objections concerning the ownership and use of a lane adjacent to the churchyard, which were the subject of an existing dispute with the Diocesan Board of Finance, the petitioners withdrew those elements of work from the petition. The court emphasised that it had no jurisdiction to determine disputes as to land ownership or the existence or extent of public highway rights. The court considered that the Method Statement for the proposed works sufficiently dealt with the objections of neighbours concerning the inevitable disruption during the course of the works. It therefore granted the faculty.

Per curiam: the petitioners had informal advice from the local planning authority that the removal of paths and excavations would not require planning permission but that the construction of new and replacement paths would. Normally, petitions for projects requiring planning permission would not be determined until such permission had been obtained; in general, the ecclesiastical courts act in a spirit of comity with tribunals of different jurisdictions (Re St Mary's Churchyard, White Waltham [2010] Fam 131). However, there is no rule of law forbidding the grant of a faculty in advance of planning permission. In this case, it was unfortunate that secular permission had not yet been obtained, but there was a reasonably reliable indication of the likely outcome and the court did not consider it proportionate to hold up or frustrate the project by refusing to grant a faculty at this point. Instead, appropriate conditions would be imposed. [DW]