A dean who has been criticised for his style of management has issued a "let's pull together" plea to his congregation.

Ripon Cathedral's John Methuen issues his call in the July edition of his monthly newsletter.

Dean Methuen says: "We must all be pulling in the same direction."

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 the cathedral's greatest difficulties is paying the bills.

It was much easier to attract support for what he called glamorous projects and serious maintenance work, than it was to pay wages, buy paper, maintain the 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, restoration of the Thorpe Prebend House, while there were others not yet in the pipeline.

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

A row surrounding the dean's style of management emerged in November 2001 and was followed by resignations of Howard Crawshaw, the chapter clerk, Nigel Clay, the bursar, and Kerry Beaumont, organist and master of the choristers.

The dean, who has been in the post since 1995, was previously a vicar in inner city Manchester.

An invitation by the Bishop of Ripon and Leeds, the Right Reverend John Packer, for people to write to him about the dean produced a postbag of about 150 statements almost a year ago.

So far, no action as a result of the correspondence has been announced.

A spokesman for the Ripon and Leeds Diocese said of the dispute surrounding the dean: "There is no further comment to add. People can make of that what they will."