A DEAN who has been under fire for his style of management has issued a let's pull together plea to his cathedral.

The Very Rev John Methuen, of Ripon Cathedral, issues his call in the July edition of his monthly newsletter.

Dean Methuen says his picture of a boat with four rowers is designed to show that the cathedral's various activities are of one boat.

"And we must all be pulling in the same direction, recognising that each rower depends upon the other one and cannot operate without being in tandem together," says the dean.

The dean identifies four key "rowers". They are the Dean and Chapter, the parochial church council, the Development Campaign and the Friends of the Cathedral.

The cathedral, which costs £3,000 a day to run but has fought shy of introducing admission charges, is facing an annual deficit of £70,000.

Dean Methuen says one of its greatest difficulties is paying the bills.

It was much easier to attract support for what he called glamorous projects and serious maintenance work than to pay wages, buy paper and maintain IT equipment, as well as paying gas and electricity bills.

He cites a range of major projects facing the cathedral, including a £500,000 new roof, its development campaign aiming to raise £3m and restoration of Thorpe Prebend House.

"The funding of our actual core activities is not very glamorous and will never attract significant support," he says. "We have to generate our own income for that."

Dean Methuen said there was concern about the cathedral's finances. And it was crucial they changed a culture which had been all too prevalent in the life of the Church in general and cathedrals in particular for different departments, different spheres of activity "not really to be in consultation and partnership with the others".

The dean belives the cathedral can no longer afford to run its own individual little departments without reference to everyone else. "I do hope that the moves we have been making over the last few weeks will enable us to keep our common life and common purpose in mind in everything that we think, speak and do."

A row surrounding the dean's style of management emerged in November 2001 and was followed by resignations of Howard Crawshaw, the chapter clerk, and Nigel Clay, the bursar, as well as Kerry Beaumont, organist and master of the choristers. The dean has been in his post since 1995.

An invitation by the Bishop of Ripon and Leeds, the Rt Rev John Packer, for people to write to him about the dean produced a postbag of about 150 statements almost a year ago. But so far no further action has been announced.