The line appears to have been drawn under the court battles of Mr and Mrs Wallbank who were the purchasers of Glebe Farm, Aston Cantlow. Unfortunately for them, part of the farm was subject to a liability to pay for repairs to the chancel of the local parish church. Needless to say, this is a significant liability. The various issues involved have been winding their way through the legal process and, last year, the Court of Appeal found in favour of Mr and Mrs Wallbank basing its decision on provisions in the Human Rights Act 1998. An intregal part of the decision was to classify the local church council as a "public authority". However, the church council duly appealed to the House of Lords which delivered its verdict towards the end of June. Unfortunately for the Wallbanks, their Lordships in the House of Lords disagreed with their colleagues in the Court of Appeal and found for the Church Council. Effectively they decided that the Church Council is not a public authority and that the European Convention on Human Rights had not been breached. Thus Mr and Mrs Wallbank will no doubt receive a repair bill in due course and it will be no consolation to them that the House of Lords conceded that the case concerned "one of the more arcane and unsatisfactory areas of property law".