A VILLAGE church has been officially closed after a four year fight by local people to save it.

Following the dismissal of a final appeal to the Privy Council, St Laurence’s Church, in Middleton St George, near Darlington, was closed for public worship by the Church of England Diocese of Durham last Friday.

Parish council chairman Doris Jones said the village had no choice but to accept the final decision, but said church commissioners had never shown much will to save the building, despite the campaign by residents.

St Laurence’s has been closed since 2008 because of structural difficulties, which, it was claimed, will cost £824,359 to repair.

The congregation now meets at the village primary school and uses the newly refurbished St George's Church, in Low Middleton, for special services.

The Archdeacon of Auckland, the Venerable Nick Barker, said: "I am relieved that we finally have a way forward and that we can get back to focus on the work of further developing the mission within the parish. It is a shame that we weren't able to find a way to restore the church for worship.

“I hope now that we will be able rapidly to find an acceptable alternative use for the building which might save it from further deterioration."

In a statement, the diocese said commercial agents had been appointed to start looking at options for the future use of the building, ahead of a decision by the Durham Diocesan Closed Churches Uses Committee.

Coun Jones said the final appeal had been a much more formal process than the parish council had been led to believe, and was based solely on the legality of the decision.

She said: “We did not think there were any problems legally with the decision, we just felt morally that there were lots of issues important to this village that had been overlooked.

“We don’t really believe there was enough will ever to want to keep the building. There was always an undercurrent of ‘let’s get rid of it’.”

A fund that was started to pay for potential restoration of the church will be closed by the commissioners and people who contributed will be able to claim their money back in the coming weeks.