St Paul's Cathedral set to reopen after Occupy London shuffles tents
Cathedral's dean indicates that interim negotiations with protesters do not preclude legal action to remove camp
St Paul's Cathedral is expected to reopen on Friday, in spite of its earlier claims that an anti-capitalist protest camp posed a "grave danger" to staff and visitors.
The dean, the Right Reverend Graham Knowles, said he was "optimistic" that the London landmark would reopen in time for Evensong after the Occupy the London Stock Exchange movement rearranged some tents, but he did not rule out legal action in the future to remove the camp.
"The staff have been working flat out with the police, fire brigade and health and safety officers to try to ensure that we have confidence in the safety of our worshippers, visitors and staff which will allow us to reopen," Knowles said. "We have wide statutory obligations to ensure the safety of our staff, congregation, visitors and pilgrims and final checks will be made tomorrow.
"A passageway allowing evacuation procedures to be improved has been created; the kitchen providing food for those in the camp has been moved from close proximity to the building; bicycles chained to the railings have been shifted and a clear pathway restored."
Knowles indicated that interim negotiations between the cathedral and protesters did not preclude legal action to ensure a permanent solution. "We have been and continue to take legal advice on a range of options including court action. Chapter very much hopes that we will achieve a peaceful solution," he said.
On Friday the cathedral closed to the public for the first time since the second world war, and Knowles said the decision was "unprecedented" and had been taken with a "heavy heart".
His latest announcement is all the more surprising given his strenuous assertions a week ago that the camp was a clear fire hazard. The breakthrough will not be enough to deter the City of London Corporation from pursuing legal avenues. It will hold a briefing on Thursday to discuss ! possible action.
A formal meeting will take place on Friday, when the corporation's planning and transportation committee considers advice on how to resolve the deadlock. The mayor of London, Boris Johnson, has become the latest figure to say the protesters should move on.
Clergy at St Paul's have been divided over what action to take against the protest. Its canon chancellor, Giles Fraser, reportedly vowed to resign in the event of any use of force to remove protesters. He was unavailable for comment.
Protesters have frequently challenged the cathedral's list of perceived health and safety risks. Naomi Colvin, a spokesman for the movement, welcomed the U-turn from St Paul's. "Having the cathedral open is very important for us. We weren't doing anything to necessitate its closure. There are no significant health and safety concerns," she said.
The London Fire Brigade said it had not advised the authorities at St Paul's to close the cathedral for fire safety reasons, saying it was satisfied that there were "no fire safety concerns with the camp itself".
A spokeswoman said: "We have been down there and spoken to the protesters and given them general fire safety advice around cooking and taking care of candles and that kind of thing but we haven't raised any real fire safety concerns with the authorities at St Paul's."
A City of London Corporation spokesman said: "Our inspectors have looked at the campsite. The cathedral authorities quite properly take their own professional advice on their matters."
He said the campsite itself was the prime concern for the corporation: "The City's not a campsite that's basically it [The protesters] are perfectly welcome to be here as protesters. We have a lot of protesters; we've had them in the past, we'll have them in the future. It's the issue around camping that's the problem. It blocks, it snarls up, it makes it difficult for everybody to go about their normal bus! iness. T here always are [health and safety concerns] if you have something unusual happening in a busy place.
"There's a whole list of them, which we're obviously monitoring carefully, from the very banal the bins and food hygiene, flammable liquids, trip hazards to access for fire engines, access for the general public. All of those have been looked at, at some point. If it's in the street outside [St Paul's] we are the authority, so they know what we think about things and we know what they think because we talk and meet on a regular basis The whole area's just got too dense."
Protesters and their supporters have scrutinised the links between St Paul's and the City. The cathedral has close ties with its neighbours. David Rouch, a partner at the City law firm Freshfields, sits on the council of reference of the St Paul's Institute, while Roger Gifford, the chairman of the Association of Foreign Banks, sits as a trustee of the St Paul's Cathedral Foundation. Carol Sergeant, the chief risk director for Lloyds Banking Group, and John Spence, a former managing director for Lloyds, are also foundation trustees.
The Church of England's investment activities have also drawn protesters' ire: the church has multimillion-pound shareholdings in HSBC, Standard Chartered, Barclays, Prudential, Lloyds Banking Group and Northern Trust.
The impasse is perceived to be damaging the reputation of the cathedral and the Church of England at home and overseas in a way that internal squabbles over gay bishops and female bishops have not. The publicist Max Clifford said it was a PR disaster..
He told the Guardian "It's not a good advert for Christianity for a church to be shutting out people who aren't causing problems to anyone. It's a very well-organised protest. It's peaceful. I was brought up to believe that a church was a place where people would find refuge. It's a very damaging stance they're taking."
The Church of England has gone from hero t! o zero i n a matter of weeks. At the start of this month, the archbishop of Canterbury won near universal praise for his public reproach of the Zimbabwean president, Robert Mugabe, during a trip to Harare. But the crisis at St Paul's has reversed this newly found favour.
Clifford said: "It just shows how quickly things can change. The cathedral has never been able to give any justification for closing. There are a lot of things they can do. They can apologise, they can provide justification. They can go out there with food and soup. At a time when everyone is looking at them, they don't seem to know how to handle it. That's why the church is disappearing over the horizon for the British public. The big mistake they made was shutting the doors, and how they get out of that is very difficult. Those tourists are being quoted all over the world. It is damning internationally and sends out all the wrong messages. What about loving they neighbour?"
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