Hands off our church roofs!

Churches across the country are being blighted by the theft of lead and copper from their roofs. For criminals keen to cash in on the high price of scrap metals, places of worship often make an obvious target.

It’s not just the cost of replacing the materials that is the problem, it’s also the resultant damage - thieves have torn holes in roofs causing leaks and ripped stonework away from pinnacles and towers.

What is the ‘Hands off our church roofs’ campaign?

To demonstrate the effectiveness of roof alarms on a widespread basis and to encourage more churches to install alarms, we’ve invested £500,000 to install systems on selected ‘at risk’ churches across dioceses in England, Wales and Scotland. Enough’s enough, we’re telling thieves ‘Hands Off Our Church Roofs’!

Once we've installed the alarm systems in the selected churches, we’ll send an information pack to all other local churches. The pack contains details of how to find out more about the systems, including details of where to go to see a system in operation near them.

To help deter thieves further, the pack includes two weather-resistant campaign posters which we encourage all parishes to display externally. Parishes can request additional copies of the poster by calling 0845 600 9659. You can also download a copy of the poster here.

To help protect your church further, we would recommend that you also download a campaign logo and add it to your church’s website.

Key benefits of the roof alarm system:

Highly effective at deterring metal theft as demonstrated in recent trials in theft hot spot areas
Specifically designed to detect and deter intruders before any damage is caused
The technology used is virtually invisible and reversible
Passive infrared (PIR) motion detectors to prevent false alarms
Requires no user intervention and works for years
Large roof areas can be covered cost effectively
If the security system is activated, a planned response based on your specific instructions is carried out − perfect for buildings in remote or rural locations.

You can discover how the roof alarm is being effectively used at a church in Salisbury diocese in the video and case study.

Did you know?

If you install an Ecclesiastical-approved roof security system and have also applied a forensic marking system approved by us (such as SmartWater) to external metal, displayed signage and registered with the provider, we may be able to increase your metal theft cover, depending on your individual circumstances. The roof alarms FAQ sheet has more information about this.

To arrange a free*, no-obligation alarm survey or if you have any queries about the alarm system, please call 0845 600 9659.

*UK mainland only - travel expenses may be applicable offshore.

**The registration and use of SmartWater, or an alternative forensic marking system approved by us, is a policy condition on both our Parishguard and Hallguard policies.

Church security

Arrange a roof alarm survey for your church

If you would like to arrange a free** no-obligation alarm survey for your church, or if you have any queries about the alarm system, please contact us on 0845 600 9659 (9am to 5pm, Monday to Friday excluding bank holidays) or by email at: roofalarms@ecclesiastical.com

Campaign video

View the video

Discover more about the problem of metal theft, roof alarms and our campaign here.

View the video

Campaign poster and website logo

To deter thieves from your church, download a copy of our roof alarm poster and a handy logo to add to your church’s website.

Download poster or web logo

Roof alarms success!

Download case studies about how the roof alarm system is helping churches.

Bradford case study

Bristol case study

Chelmsford case study

Manchester case study

Manchester case study (campaign launch church)

Salisbury case study
Southwell and Nottingham case study

Roof alarms FAQ and factsheet

Commonly asked questions and answers and an alarm factsheet for you to download.

FAQs Factsheet

Metal theft – how at risk are you?

We’ve produced an easy-to-use self-assessment tool to help you work out the risk of metal theft for your church.

Find out more

This website works best using cookies which are currently blocked. Would you like to allow cookies?

More information

In order to collect the anonymous data described in the preceding paragraph, we may use temporary "cookies" that remain in the cookies file of your browser until the browser is closed. We consider none of them to be intrusive to you; infact some will enhance your experience on our website. The cookies that we collect are:

Cookie Law Compliance - This cookie is placed if you click the Allow button in the cookie message. It tells us you have given your consent to the use of cookies on our site and stops this message from displaying.

Session and Person ID Cookies – These allow us to place you on a more suitable page based on your previous visits to our website – it will enable you to get to the content we believe you want, quicker. We collect no personal data that would enable us to physically identify you from this Cookie.

Website Analytics data – We’ll not collect data that enable us to identify you. The only cookies which you may consider could be intrusive are those that identify which county/area of the country you come from, and if you are a new, or returning visitor.

__utma, __utmb, __utmc and __utmz cookies - We use Google Analytics. They allow us to recognise and count the number of visitors and to see how visitors move around the site when they’re using it. This helps us to improve the way our website works, for example by making sure users are finding what they need easily.

NID & PREF cookies – These cookies are third party cookies used by Google. Please take a look at the Google policy to see how they use these cookies. www.google.com/intl/en/policies/privacy/

Google re-marketing code – We use a cookie to track you on other sites and show adverts to you based on where you have visited on our site. We do this to remind you of our services in case you wish to come back and buy them. We only use these cookies for 30 days after your last visit to our website. We do not control these cookies, so these will be unaffected by the choice you make today. You may opt out of the use of cookies by visiting Google advertising opt-out page.

Google AdSense – We use this cookie to report to us how the adverts shown on our websites are performing. User data is all anonymous.

You can find out more generally about Google and its policies and principles as regards advertising at http://www.google.com/policies/privacy/ads/

You Tube cookie – We use this cookie to help maintain the integrity of video statistics, prevent fraud and improve site and video experience. If you play any of the videos in our website, it will drop a cookie.

Cookies by themselves cannot be used to discover the identity of the user. A cookie is a small piece of information which is sent to your browser and stored on your computer’s hard drive. Cookies do not damage your computer. You can set your browser to notify you when you receive a cookie. This enables you to decide if you want to accept it or not.

We also use your IP address to help diagnose problems with our server and to administer our website. An IP address is a numeric code that identifies your computer on a network, or in this case, the Internet. Your IP address is also used to gather broad demographic information, such as determining how many of our visitors are from outside of the UK.

We may also perform IP lookups to determine which domain you are coming from (i.e: aol.com, yourcompany.com) to more accurately gauge our users' demographics.

If you choose to accept these cookies, we believe that it will only enhance your experience on our website. If you choose to accept these cookies, we can’t change that choice for you in the future.

We may add further cookies which we consider to be no intrusive in the future. By agreeing to the cookies today, you are also agreeing to cookies which we may choose to use in the future.

Full privacy policy

Ecclesiastical Insurance Office plc (EIO) Reg. No. 24869. Ecclesiastical Insurance Group plc (EIG) Reg. No. 1718196. Ecclesiastical Life Ltd (ELL) Reg. No. 243111. Ecclesiastical Investment Management Ltd (EIM) Reg. No. 2519319. Ecclesiastical Financial Advisory Services Ltd (EFAS) Reg. No. 2046087. Ecclesiastical Services Ltd (ES) Reg. No. 1811698. E.I.O. Trustee Ltd Reg. No. 941199. All companies are registered in England at Beaufort House, Brunswick Road, Gloucester, GL1 1JZ, UK. Ecclesiastical Insurance Office plc and Ecclesiastical Life Limited are authorised by the Prudential Regulation Authority and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority and the Prudential Regulation Authority. Ecclesiastical Financial Advisory Services is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. Ecclesiastical Services Limited is an appointed representative of Ecclesiastical Insurance Office Plc who is authorised by the Prudential Regulation Authority and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority and the Prudential Regulation Authority.