Church of St Teresa to get $1.35m for maintenance, restorative work
Church of St Teresa still needs to come up with $3m to complete repairs
The Church of St Teresa will receive about $1.35 million in funding for maintenance and restorative work through the National Monuments Fund this year, the National Heritage Board (NHB) said yesterday.
The amount is more than half of the total $2.1 million to be disbursed this year. The rest will be shared among 11 other national monuments.
Repairs to be carried out on the church in Kampong Bahru Road include structural repair and strengthening, as well as restoration of the roof and ceiling, walls and exterior, timber windows and doors, and stained glass and terrazzo floor.
The church's walls will have to be stripped and repainted entirely.
Evidence of water seepage in the roof and ceiling was found, which led to bubbles forming and cracks on the ceiling.
The total cost of the church's repairs is estimated at $4.3 million, and it will have to come up with the remaining $3 million. The church will celebrate its 90th anniversary next April.
Director of NHB's Preservation of Sites and Monuments division Jean Wee said repairs would not just be physical but also social and spiritual.
"When the restorations are completed, more people will start to visit the church (and other monuments); more people will be wanting to get married here," she said.
The church was gazetted as a national monument in 2009. It is the first time it has applied for restorative funding under the National Monuments Fund.
Church parishioner Joseph Silverayan said: "(Since 2009) we have been gathering reserves and donations from the congregation... to fund the repairs."
The National Monuments Fund operates on a co-funding and reimbursement basis.
This means that monument owners must raise a sum of money equivalent to the total cost of repairs before applying for funding.
They can then use the reimbursed money for other kinds of constructive work.
As of this year, $6.6 million of $11.7 million has been disbursed from the second tranche of the fund that began in 2016.
Disbursements are assessed based on the urgency and severity of damage to monuments.
A component of the National Monuments Fund introduced in 2016, called the Maintenance Fund, has also been enhanced.
It now covers the maintenance of vegetation around national monuments, such as the trimming of branches growing nearby.
St Joseph's Church in Bugis will be the first national monument to utilise the fund for this purpose.
To date, 72 structures have been gazetted as national monuments in Singapore. Of these, 31 are run by non-profit or religious organisations eligible to apply for the National Monuments Fund.
Twenty-seven monuments have benefited from the fund since its introduction in 2008.
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