WATCH as new chief operating officer of Peterborough Cathedral urges residents to support historic venue

The plea comes from the cathedral’s newly appointed chief operating officer Jack Pishhorn who has been brought in to oversee and grow the income for the 900-year-old building, which costs an immense £2.5 million a year to run.

His appeal comes a year after the church authorities launched a hugely successful Cathedral in Crisis appeal at the beginning of last year that raised some £300,000.

But Mr Pishhorn, who joined the team at the start of the year and has previously worked as visitor services manager for TV presenter and farmer Adam Henson’s Cotswold Farm Park, said the cathedral would not be repeating the crisis appeal but would still be looking for support from the people of Peterborough and beyond.

He said: “My big message is that we need the people of Peterborough, Northamptonshire and Rutland to get behind this cathedral.

"If we are to be able to safeguard the cathedral long term, we need people to use us.

“Come and visit us, come and engage in worship, come to an event, come to our new cafe that is going to be opening over the next few weeks.

He said: “There is so much here for a whole diverse range of audiences, but for us to still be here in 100 years time we need people to safeguard us now by coming and help to support us.”

Counting the costs at Peterborough Cathedral

Mr Pishhorn said the cathedral currently costs £2.5 million a year to run with those costs include pay for the staff, some £400 a day to heat the building and the immense costs of repairs and maintenance of the historic building.

He said: “The crisis campaign last year was very successful for us and raised just over £300,000, which was key to ensure that we didn’t continue losing the money at the rate the cathedral was doing

"But it also allowed us to stop and think about where we wanted to be.

"We commissioned a long term masterplan, which has just been completed, and also went for a major piece of recruitment for a chief operating officer.

Tackling the daily deficit:

Mr Pishhorn said: “The majority of cathedrals in the UK are running at a deficit and we are running at a deficit of around £500,000 a year.

"We have a funding gap of £1,400 a day – so it is a huge challenge ahead for us.

"But we are not going to go out for a big fund raising crisis campaign again because we have been there and done that.

"We’ve rallied the local residents and the people of the diocese, which we are very grateful for, but now we need to start thinking about long term sustainability.

"So we are looking at how we grow our events, looking at what we are doing with our property, bringing in a catering partner, looking at our donations and a ‘giving as you access the cathedral’ arrangement.

He added: “We really are looking at how we can generate much larger income streams to our cathedral to make sure we are reducing that daily deficit.”

The power of music:

Mr Pishhorn said: ““We are looking at a campaign later this year focused on our music department because it is so important we secure the sustainability of our music department but we are not going to go back to the public and ask for big giving and donations this year.

"But for those who have visited the cathedral over the last couple of months you will see we have a new admissions process and we are asking people to give a minimum donation of £5 to come through because it’s £5 per minute to run this cathedral.

He added: “That is going very well and is enabling us to generate more income.

"But we are a place that is accessible for everyone and still free to enter but we are encouraging people when they visit us to give us as much money as possible to help us keep our lights on, to help keep our heating on and to help us be able to grow our team so we can do more things moving forward.”