With those who once attended churches in large numbers as a matter of course dying off, and the following generations no longer needing Christianity to be part of their lives, what should be done with such no longer used buildings? Should they be demolished in the way redundant factories and railway stations - many of high architectural merit - are flattened, to be replaced by mundane housing accommodation, shops or new warehouses? Even converting old churches and chapels into homes somehow defiles them. Planners seem to be against such conversions. And the cost of using them for local community purposes is often too great for consideration. Gradual collapse seems the only future for many of them.