West Yorkshire Dioceses Commission Draft Scheme

The Draft Scheme has now been released and it contains fundamental recommendations to change the Dioceses of Bradford, Ripon & Leeds and Wakefield  into one single new Diocese of Wakefield. Sheffield will remain a separate Diocese under the recommendations.

The original report considered which structures will best enable the Church of England to relate to the communities of Yorkshire (not just in the parishes but also at city, borough, district and county levels), which will be most intelligible to non-churchgoers, which would eliminate wasteful duplication, and which are likely to prove resilient and sustainable into the medium term.

The draft scheme now looks at the practical implications of implementing the recommendations.

For the detailed draft scheme please visit http://www.churchofengland.org/about-us/structure/dioceses-commission/yorkshire.aspx

The primary recommendation is to create one Diocese of West Yorkshire including parts of Bradford and Ripon/Leeds Dioceses that are in North Yorkshire. This new Diocese would be divided into episcopal areas with area bishops to whom day-to-day oversight of their areas would be delegated. The see would be based at Wakefield with the diocesan administration office based in Leeds. The existing cathedrals at Ripon and Bradford would be retained.

The draft scheme is open for comment from 1st November 2011 until 30 April 2012 so please do take a look and pass your comments to yorkshirereview@churchofengland.org

Following a 6 month consultation period the Commission will consider the responses and finalise the scheme. The diocesan synods would be invited to approve the scheme later in 2012, with a view to it coming before the General Synod in July 2013. Preparatory implementation work would then take place. The earliest that the new diocese could come into existence would be late 2013/2014.