Scotland's church's, struggling with dwindling congregations, are building affordable accommodation to help ease the strain of the credit crunch.

Scottish Churches Housing Action (SCH) has highlighted almost 50 empty and underused church buildings across Scotland that could help address Scotland's affordable housing shortage.

The congregation of Granton United Church, Edinburgh, hopes to get planning permission to demolish its place of worship. It wants to build 15 affordable homes on the site and a new church that is a more appropriate size for the dwindling number of parishioners, and which has lower maintenance costs.

With funding from the Scottish government, SCH has identified almost 50 similar examples where there are small and ageing congregations, churches too big for their needs, and maintenance costs that they cannot justify or afford. To date, it has received 41 inquiries; an additional 21 are at feasibility stage, and seven are nearing completion.

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SCH chief executive, Alastair Cameron said: "The problem of too many church buildings for too few worshippers will, I'm afraid, be with us even once the economy is recovering. With the credit crunch and the economic slowdown, we see ourselves using this period to get the message across.

"Churches have too many properties and often they don't know what to do with them, while Scotland has a housing crisis. We believe that both issues can be tackled at once."

Mr Cameron cited Kingcase Parish Church in Prestwick, which has recently sold land to Ayrshire Housing that is currently being used to build four new houses and six flats for affordable rent, as a "shining example" of the practice in action.

He said: "We want to see more churches following this example. The community gets affordable housing and the church gets an extension to their hall. Churches belong to their congregation, but they also belong to the community. While some disused churches become nightclubs, people would prefer them to become affordable housing."

The affordable housing idea originally came from the United Reform Church (URC), in Leith. In 2005, it sold its land to the Port of Leith Housing Association (POLHA) for £455,000, with the right to buy back a smaller and purpose-built church on the site for £330,000.

Gordon Cameron, POLHA development director, described the move as "a win-win situation."

(GK/JM)