Protest church offered for £1,000

29 July 2011 Last updated at 10:56 GMT The Church in Wales offers to sell a Rhondda community its church for ?1,000

Campaigners fighting to save a church in Rhondda Cynon Taf have been offered the building for ?1,000, well below the ?25,000 market value.

Protesters have been staging a sit-in at All Saints Church in Maerdy, which needs ?400,000 of repairs, all month.

Archbishop of Wales Dr Barry Morgan said he was giving the protesters a chance to save the church.

Campaigners said they could raise ?1,000, but they disputed the repair costs, claiming they were ?100,000.

Dr Morgan said the Church in Wales could sell the building at that price provided it was kept as a place of worship.

The parochial church council (PCC), which is made up of elected members from the three local churches of Maerdy, Ferndale and Tylorstown, had voted to close All Saints.

The Maerdy branch abstained from the vote over the church's future.

'Great opportunity'

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I am giving the protesters in Maerdy exactly what they are asking for - a chance to save All Saints Church from closure”

End Quote Dr Barry Morgan Archbishop of Wales The PCC has refused to give the church a year's reprieve, and the archbishop has refused to overrule that decision because it had been taken by a democratically-elected body.

But on Friday the Church in Wales confirmed it was now offering the church for just ?1,000.

Dr Morgan said: "I am giving the protesters in Maerdy exactly what they are asking for - a chance to save All Saints Church from closure.

"They are confident they can raise enough money to restore and maintain it and now they will only have to find an extra ?1,000 to buy it.

"It's a great opportunity for them as the community would then own the building and the land and its future would be in their hands."

'Dry and wet rot'

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We can raise the ?1,000, but will need to start fundraising towards the repair costs.”

End Quote Sarah Morton Friends of All Saints The archbishop, who made the offer to sell the church at a PCC meeting in Tylorstown on 19 July, before accompanying protesters to All Saints, said it was "a sad situation" to see any church close.

The Church in Wales said the church was valued at ?25,000, and the ?1,000 it was asking would simply cover its costs in handling the sale.

However, Sarah Morton of the church campaigners Friends of All Saints said the repairs would only cost ?100,000.

She said: "We've had a survey carried out and the architect and surveyor who visited the church said there was nowhere near ?400,000 worth of repairs.

"They said ?100,000 would secure the roof and solve the dry and wet rot problems."

"We can raise the ?1,000, but will need to start fundraising towards the repair costs.

"We're appealing for donations from building firms and tradesmen who might be able to work for free or for a lower fee, and we'll have to come up with fundraising ideas."

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Three Israel protest women home

14 July 2011 Last updated at 15:08 GMT Fiona Williams from Swansea was on hunger strike for 48 hours Three of the four Welsh women detained in Israel as part of a so-called "flytilla" protest are back home.

They had been held at a detention centre south of Tel Aviv since arriving at Ben Gurion Airport last Friday.

The remaining protester, Dee Murphy from Swansea, is still in Israel but it is hoped she will return later on Thursday.

Shortly before their release, the Israeli embassy said authorities were looking after those being held.

Other UK protesters were deported but the Welsh women had initially refused, saying they had done nothing wrong.

The activists had planned to attend West Bank events in support of Palestinians but were detained.

Some of the protesters, including Fiona Williams, 46, and Ms Murphy, 56, both from the Swansea Palestine group, went on hunger strike after they say they were prevented from making phone calls.

They accepted food again after 48 hours when they were allowed to call home.

Ms Williams said after returning home: "I'm glad we did what we did.

"I don't feel we got anywhere because they [the Israeli authorities] seem to be a law onto themselves.

"We went to test our right to visit people in Palestine - we were invited as friends - and we weren't able to do that."

Pippa Bartolotti, 57, deputy leader of the Wales Green Party, and Joyce Giblin, a member of the Socialist Labour Party from Newport, were also detained on Friday.

Speaking from the plane at Ben Gurion airport, Ms Bartolotti said she had bruises and had been handcuffed "very roughly" shortly after her arrival.

She said the group had been treated badly and were asked to sign a statement that was written only in Hebrew.

Earlier, Amir Ofek, spokesman for the Israeli embassy in the UK, said of the protest: "The Israeli authorities went beyond basic necessities in ensuring the comfort of those being held, providing regular contact with their families at home, and issuing passengers with any medication that they might need.

"Consular support from the British embassy was immediately requested, in the form of visits from British staff."

He said Israel was a democratic country where heated debates occurred every hour of the day across a range of issues.

"They do not take place however in an airport, one of the most sensitive buildings in the country, where the security threat is real. No other state would tolerate this and neither will we," he added.

The timing of the action, as a flotilla of ships trying to break a blockade on the Gaza Strip was prevented from leaving Greece, led some to call it a "flytilla".

Organisers denied the protest was linked to the attempt to break the blockade.

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