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Anger as council 'needlessly' tears down 175-year-old church over 'unbased fears'

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It had a rich musical history. A famous composer was a choirboy there and some of its congregation sang in an episode of Coronation Street in the 1960s.

But Oldham council's demolition of the Victorian St John's Church, in Werneth, has hit a sour note with heritage groups. Town hall bosses opted for tearing down the building, founded in 1844 and consecrated in October 1845, as they fear it could attract vandals and "blight" the area.

But the council's reasoning has been condemned as a "dangerous precedent" and a "wasteful" act by the National Churches Trust and Victorian Society respectively. READ MORE: Join the FREE Manchester Evening News WhatsApp community An aerial picture taken in 1947 shows how the church was at the centre of a community, then dominated by Werneth Mill and hundreds of terraced homes.

The mill and the homes have gone, though, and after surviving longest, the church has too. The Manchester Evening News reported last month that the former church, which has been closed since the 1980s, was set to be demolished.

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