At first glance, the United Reformed Church seems as sturdy a structure as the day it was completed in 1859 as the first public building of Sir Titus Salt’s model village.

A personal project of the mill owner and philanthropist, the church was a hub of the community for workers who had escaped the squalor of inner city Bradford when Sir Titus built Salts Mill nine years earlier.

It has stood in Victoria Road, Saltaire, for 149 years as testament to its founder’s vision of the utopian society he was creating for his textile mill workforce.

But look closely at the historic grade I-listed building and the cracks begin to show.

Water is leaking through the roof of its magnificently-decorated portico a result of thieves taking lead valued at more than £10,000 in a series of attacks on the building.

Steel beams supporting the roof have also started to decay severely as water seeps in and the old steps leading up to the huge wooden doorway have become cracked and uneven, posing a hazard to thousands of tourists who visit each year.

Even more worrying however, is the state of the mausoleum, where Sir Titus is buried with his wife and children.

The tiles bear the dirty watermarks of successive downpours and the once-impressive plasterwork on the ceiling has been left cracked and peeling.

Now, church leaders have spelled out their own vision to preserve the church as a leading example of British Victorian architecture to draw in more community groups and visitors from further afield.

Len Morris, a spokesman for Saltaire United Reformed Church, said: “Firstly, this is a beautiful building and well-worth preserving in its own right.

“But also making the building as accessible to the community is what Sir Titus wanted to do.

“He built the church to serve his people and he would have had just this kind of thing in mind.”

Initial plans submitted to English Heritage include proposals to create a more “accessible” church.

This not only means making it more physically accessible – by creating disabled facilities – but also as a beacon to draw in history enthusiasts, tourists and schoolchildren.

The new vision – supported by English Heritage officials and World Heritage Site officers at Bradford Council – is the biggest scheme of improvements since 1998, when a major project was carried out to secure the tower and the roof.

The latest application for £240,734.01 includes: l replacement of the lead covering to the roof of the church’s entrance, replacement of roof timbers and plaster finishes l repair of the stone entrance steps l repair of masonry broken by corroded iron joists l investigation into the causes of damage to decorative plasterwork and repairs of Sir Titus’s mausoleum.

l repair of glazing and statues in the church – including the marble angel sculpture in the mausoleum.

Future works will include turning downstairs rooms into a visitor and education centre.

These will be carried out if bids to groups such as Heritage Lottery and Waste Recycling Environmental Ltd (Wren) are successful. Private businesses have also made donations to church funds, which now stand at about £30,000.

Roger Pollard, secretary of the committee, said: “We have a vision of this building and how we want to interpret its use for the needs of the congregation but we also want it to be used as a community facility.

“We want to improve the front of the building to make it more accessible so that we can use rooms inside as a tourist and information centre.”

Mr Morris added: “There are reducing congregation numbers and what English Heritage is saying is that we have got to make the building pay its way.

“It is a historic building in a heritage site and it can be developed for educational reasons and for tourism reasons.

“English Heritage don’t want this building to decay, it wants it to generate its own income.

“That is what we want to do so it will last for another 50 to a 100 years.”

For more details and updates about the restoration, visit saltaireurc.org.uk.