Becky Payne

With a degree in archaeology, Becky dug her away around the world for five years, before spending 18 years with Historic England. She then spent seven years as the Policy Officer in the Cathedral and Church Buildings Division, CofE, promoting and enabling the potential of church buildings as a resource for their communities. Freelance since 2011, she specialises in the places of worship sector building up an extensive knowledge of their management, conservation and increasing efforts at sustainability through extended community use at both national and ‘ground’ level. She has written online resources for congregations, including the Crossing the Threshold Toolkit as well as undertaking project evaluations most recently the NLHF's Grants for Places of Worship programme and the National Churches Trust MaintenanceBooker. She has worked as a consultant on research projects, most recently the Empowering Design Practices, an Open University five-year research project on how community-led design can help places of worship connect with their communities.

As well as her voluntary work at HRBA, Becky is a member of the London DAC and a Trustee of the Churches Visitor and Tourism Association. She is a Director of Brixton Energy Solar 2 and Brixton Energy Solar 3, two co-operatives generating community-owned energy in Brixton, London. She is also Director and Secretary of Repowering, an umbrella organisation based in South London which supports similar co-operatives.