As work to restore the glory of our parish home progresses, deliberate efforts are being made to achieve the ambitious goal of making it the most carbon neutral cathedral in the country.
Neil Moss, Project and Site Manager of the Simpsons of York – the company contracted to carry out the cathedral restoration project, shared some updates with visitors during a recent cathedral tour, pointing out that the restoration project is a journey towards achieving a sustainable and environmentally-conscious future.
Our sustainability efforts
Highlighting some of the steps taken on this journey, Neil disclosed that since the beginning of the restoration work at the cathedral, no waste has been sent to a landfill site and all the waste generated so far have been completely recycled.
“When you build a new building, you’re using a lot of energy. But we’ve already got an existing building, and this has already got all that carbon captured in it. It’s already present in the natural products that have been there for 150 years.
So, all the waste generated from any material we use, we send it to a waste transfer station, and it gets recycled. And currently, we are a hundred percent recycling, so we’ve not sent anything to a landfill site from waste.”
Neil explained how the Victorian stained-glass windows are being taken to a workshop to be carefully cleaned, repaired, restored where necessary, and placed between environmental protective glazing to help conserve the glass for the future and help address problems with heat loss from the building.
Speaking on other plans that are in place to achieve the desired sustainability goal, Neil said it is hoped that the cement plaster used to build the cathedral will be scraped and replaced all through with the eco-friendly lime plaster and a rainwater recycling system through which collected rainwater is saved and prepared for further use and reuse will be set up.
He added that the Cathedral will not have to rely on electricity or gas as plans are underway to install a natural underfloor heating system.
A lifetime experience
Taking place each month, the cathedral tours have been an opportunity for our parishioners and visitors to be part of the story by going behind the scenes to view the restoration work first-hand.
Neil described the tours as “once in a lifetime experience that gives you the rare chance to see what you wouldn’t normally see and gain some knowledge of how the work is being done”.
“This is a once in a lifetime experience. You are never going to get into this cathedral as it is now, ever again!
A visiting couple, Kevin and Sandra also shared their experience;
“The tour is very informative! If you come to the tour, you’ll really be impressed by the work that is being done. We are very pleased. We have generations of families – our great grandparents, grandparents and parents married here at the Cathedral.
“Something very interesting for us was the bishop’s tree which tells the story of the history of the church and existence of the church during and after the reformation. When we used to come here, it was all painted up but now with the work going on, we could see the patches of the letters on the wall. It’s wonderful”.
Click here for updates on the restoration journey of our Cathedral.
