LEDBURY Methodist Church faces having to invest a large sum of money - believed to be in the region of £500,000 - to guarantee its future in the town.

A consultation group has been set up by The Homend church to look at the options of either paying for repairs to its current building or looking for another site on which to build a new church.

The current building has a severe damp problem.

Senior steward Tom Deane confirmed that consultations had taken place over whether to carry out major repairs to the present church or move.

He said nothing in the way of positive plans had yet been formulated and that the group did not yet have "realistic" figures for the costs involved.

"It's quite a major decision we're in the process of having to make," he said.

"We feel we can't rush into a decision because it could be quite a large sum of money and we have to be sure that we can raise the money involved.

"Really, we're in the position of decision making over what we have got to do in the future."