All buildings require general and regular maintenance. The old adage of “don’t put off till tomorrow what can be done today” always works – delaying routine and minor works maintenance always costs more in the end!
We live in an era of regulation; most of this is there for a good reason, and we do try always to ensure that we keep up with our statutory duties with regards to electricity, gas use, fire risks and all the other things that can cause harm to anyone using our premises. We use an annual schedule of necessary repetitive tasks to track what needs to be done to keep our properties fully functional, and what has been done.
We can, with our own resources, do many of the tasks ourselves, but we also use trusted local contractors to undertake the works we can’t do. We do pride ourselves in trying to be as fair as possible to our contractors, working with them to ensure their (and our!) safety, and paying invoices promptly.
We also rely upon the observation powers of our Congregation and other property users to let us know when something isn’t right, and encourage them to let us know as soon as possible. We log these defects and keep a watch for things that appear to be repetitive or are signalling a more significant failure.
It seems we must be doing something right. In 2022, we were honoured to be awarded the National Churches Trust Naylor Award in Scotland for “Excellence in Church Maintenance”.
