Calls to re-invest more tourism tax into the country's cathedrals were today backed in North Yorkshire.

Cathedral grants of £113,000 for York Minster and £11,000 for Ripon Cathedral were announced by English Heritage chairman, Sir Neil Cossons, today.

York's cash will pay for the final phase of masonry repairs to the chapter house vestibule, and Ripon's for the lead and slate roofs of the south west and north west towers. Sir Neil also called on the Government to recognise the importance of cathedrals as the living hearts of the country's most historic cities and stressed the importance of re-investing some of the proceeds of tourism.

He said: "Revenue from tourism in England was worth £49.9 billion in 1999. It is short-sighted not to recognise the need to re-invest some of this revenue back into the historic environment to safeguard cathedrals and their historic surrounding." Last year cathedrals attracted 18.2 million visitors to England's historic cities. Taxes from tourism are currently estimated at £3 billion a year.

A recent poll by MORI showed that between June 1999 and May 2000, 26 per cent of the population visited a cathedral, compared to 17 per cent who attended a football match.

Nigel Clay, bursar at Ripon Cathedral, said it cost £2,000 a day to run the cathedral, and backed Sir Neil's comments. "People need to realise most cathedrals are very reliant on the level of grant aid. Ripon has been well maintained for many years and is in fairly good repair, but the roofs are giving some cause for concern and at some point we will need to repair the main nave roof. One of the difficulties cathedrals have is we do like to encourage visitors to come and visit but the vast majority feel it is immoral to charge admission.

Updated: 10:40 Friday, January 26, 2001