Building Surveyor – Church Planting & Revitalisation

Purpose of the Role

To act as the lead professional Building Surveyor for Church Planting and Revitalisation projects across the Diocese, providing technical advice, condition assessment, defect diagnosis, statutory compliance support, heritage consultation and project delivery expertise. The postholder will be responsible for ensuring that buildings are suitable, sustainable and legally compliant while supporting the mission and strategic objectives of Church of England Birmingham.

Background to the Role

Church of England Birmingham (CofEB) is on a journey of growing churches at the heart of every community. Through this we are seeing growth in many exciting ways and have recently been awarded over £17.8m for the latest phase of our strategy from the national church. A key theme within our strategy is Church Planting and Revitalisation. This is where we either start new churches in communities that need them or breathe new life into existing churches that are struggling. Buildings are normally key. We either need to buy buildings and retrofit them or update our existing buildings for this purpose. We need a property professional. They will be part of our Property Team and be dedicated to working on the property elements of our church plants and revitalisations. Each Church Plant, or Revitalisation is its own separate project within CofEB and this role will lead on the property elements of these projects under the project governance already in place (normally a steering group chaired by a representative of the Mission Support Team under the remit ultimately of our Executive Board).

Key Elements of This Role Include

• Managing a range of building improvement projects from very small to quite large from conception to completion.
• Stakeholder management and communications so that plans are formed and delivered collaboratively.
• Submitting applications to Birmingham Diocesan Advisory Committee for the Care of Churches (DAC), on behalf of parishes, to gain permission for property improvements.
• Working with internal teams, predominantly Mission Support and the Project Management Office, to ensure projects are delivered holistically and in line with funder expectations.
• Supporting Directors, Archdeacons and others to develop the property elements of future strategic plans. This will mean providing advice and technical knowledge to support the creation of costed concepts that will be used to secure the funding required for a project.

Reporting Relationships and Governance

Reporting Structure
Director of Property
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Building Surveyor
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External Consultants, Contractors and Surveying Specialists

The role will meet monthly with the Director of Strategic Transformation who will assign new projects as they come on stream and act as the primary liaison between the Property Team and the project governance structures.