Manchester Cathedral has been the latest church affected by the growing issue of metal theft, with a cross worth £2,500 taken from one of its chapels.
A thief removed a silver chain which attached the cross to a shelf in the Lady Chapel and left with the 2ft souvenir.
A spokesman from the church said, “we’re one of a number of chapels who are open to the public. We don’t charge to come in and the doors are open from 8 in the morning to 6 or 7 in the evening.
“Unfortunately sometimes this gets abused.”
“As a result we’ve had to beef up our security. There are areas now which are out of bounds and we’ve had to increase our alarmed areas.”
The Cathedral, like most churches and cathedrals throughout the UK, is insured by Ecclesiastical.
On Friday the Telegraph quoted the Very Reverend Rogers Govender, the Dean of Manchester, as saying the church had made too many claims for metal theft.
“We have exhausted our insurance claims on metal theft. Anything which is now stolen from us has to be replaced from money raised in collections.”
The spokesman who spoke to News Insurance denied this, saying “Ecclesiastical are fantastic. They’ve been fantastic and we’ve had no problem at all with them.”
“We have an excess of £2,500 which is a figure which we decided on ourselves for any claim on metal theft and this cross was valued just under £2,500, although to replace it will probably cost terribly more.
“That’s where the confusion came from.”
The spokesman said that to have another cross made could cost up to £8,000.
The cross was originally made in a workshop around 1940 and presented to the Cathedral in 1957 to commemorate rebuilding after a bomb had damaged part of the building. It was later placed in the Lady’s Chapel where it rested until the theft last Friday.
