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The case of Thwaites Brow
Thwaites Brow is a semi-rural parish on the fringe of the
metropolis which in recent years has received much new suburban
housing. The church was, in the late 1960's, in such a poor state
of repair that despite earlier expenditure of appreciable sums a
further expenditure of at least £40,000 would have been needed to
rehabilitate the structure, and even if that were done there could
still be no certainty of the building surviving for any length of
time. After lengthy discussion (which apparently became so difficult
that the priest who was the then incumbent felt they should preferably
not be discussed in this study) the decision was made to demolish and
rebuild rather than expend further sums on repair. In order to show
the benefit which could be derived by applying capital investment
appraisal at an adequately early stage it had been hoped to recon-
struct the relevant cash flows by reference to the appropriate parish
annual accounts and compare them with the capital outflow. Unfortuna-
tely, the accounts were found to be hardly adequate for the purpose -
(despite some assiduous research by the current incumbent - one year's
were missing completely, necessitating re-construction by intelligent
interpolation, which further weakened any hopes of being realistic)
and in view of such weakness it was also deemed pointless to allow for
inflation. It should be stressed therefore, that what follows is not
an attempt to reach any conclusion, but only an exemplification of
certain techniques which the Diocese might consider studying more
closely in case they could be a useful supplementation to present
procedures.
2.6.2
Investment appraisal techniques considered
For the data for the years 1965 to 1977 (i.e. five years before
renewal to latest available) see Figure 4.
