HEAVY debts may force a Heysham parish to demolish and sell off its church building.

St Patrick's RC church has debts to the Diocesan trustees of £114,000 and is also faced with the need to maintain four buildings which require an estimated £200,000 of repairs.

The problems could mean St Patrick's sharing the home of the St John's Church of England parish.

The parish has fallen into difficulties because it has been forced to pay 15 per cent of capital costs for St Patrick's school, as well as having to meet £50,000 in costs with the closure of St Patrick's club, which suffered an arson attack in March. The old church building, now the church hall is boarded up because of dry rot.

The current church was built in the 60s to serve a growing number of holidaymakers, but, with a decline in tourist numbers and the splitting of the parish into two, it has proved to be unnecessarily large.

"The church was built at a time when Morecambe was attracting a lot of tourists and people were queuing for Sunday mass at the old church," explained Fr David Elder: "But the growth in tourist numbers stopped and we have been left with four buildings which we don't really need for a parish of our size."

After a year of consideration, two possibilities were revealed to the parish at the weekend.

One is to demolish and sell off St Patrick's hall and pastoral centre and commission an architect's study on how to make the church more suitable for current ad future needs.

The other would see the church, hall and pastoral centre knocked down, with the church taking up an offer to share facilities with St John's.

"We have had good relations with St John's for some time now, and when they heard about their current problems, they were happy to offer their help," explained Fr David.

St John's and St Patrick's may, eventually, form an ecumenical partnership, similar to one between two churches in Dalton-in-Furness, which would see them share as many functions as possible.

Fr David added: "If we do share with St John's then we would want to take it further, but that is a long way down the road. It is a very exciting possibility."

A parish development group is to be commissioned on November 4 to consider the question 'which of these two options will best enable St Patrick's Parish to live the Good News of Jesus Christ in future years?'

The final decision on the future of St Patrick's lies with Bishop Patrick O'Donoghue the Bishop of Lancaster. No decision is expected until next year.