AN ANGLICAN clergyman is to enlist Mammon in the service of God by turning crumbling places of worship into profitable businesses.

The Rev Andrew Mottram, priest-in-charge of All Saints, Hereford, is going part-time at the church from January to join two senior lay employees in setting up the country’s first church development company. They aim to help worshippers of all denominations find an income from underused and deteriorating church buildings.

The churches will remain centres of worship but galleries, naves, side aisles and under-used chapels will be turned into restaurants, galleries or shops to help pay the bills.

But many churches, especially the cavernous neo-Gothic Victorian edifices erected in their hundreds in the late 19th century, have vast spaces that are rarely filled.

They cost thousands of pounds to maintain and have become so rundown that, in spite of being in prime sites in town and city centres, have slumped in value while properties around them have made fortunes for their owners.

Ecclesiastical Property Services has been set up by Mr Mottram along with Bob Greig, of the Church Commissioners and Emma Osmundsen, surveyor for the Exeter Diocese. The company will act as consultants for clergy, ministers and congregations who want to devise a development plan to restore and transform their buildings into profitable concerns.

Mr Mottram was appointed in 1991 by the Bishop of Hereford, the Right Rev John Oliver, who retires tomorrow.

Mr Mottram has transformed All Saints from a crumbling wreck into a centre of social activity with local art selling on the walls, cafe and restaurant, bookstall, and enormous stainless steel loo gleaming in the west end of the nave.

The centre has become a focal point for anyone in Hereford who wants a gossip over a cup of tea — or who is desperate for other facilities. Sunday congregations are usually about 50 and up to 15 turn up for the three weekday services.

When Mr Mottram arrived, the church was up for redundancy and had been served with three dangerous structures notices, including one for the twisted spire. English Heritage helped with £560,000 towards £1 million repairs to the structure and a further £750,000 went on the interior, with £540,000 of lottery cash.

Its debts are now down from £150,000 to £20,000. In his book England’s Thousand Best Churches, Simon Jenkins describes the church as a “paragon of parochial activity”. There are regular visits by worshippers from around the country wanting to work similar miracles on their own churches.

Mr Mottram, who hopes to become a non-stipendiary and work full-time for the firm, said: “A lot of church buildings are depreciating in value because there is not enough money to maintain them.

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