Reports that the Bradford Diocese could be scrapped or merged with neighbours have been quashed.

National newspaper reports at the weekend suggested the Dioceses Commission, which started reviewing the boundaries of the five Yorkshire dioceses last year, was drawing up plans to axe the Bradford Diocese or merge it with those of Ripon and Leeds or York in response to falling congregations.

But Debbie Child, acting diocesan secretary for the Bradford Diocese, said there had been no suggestion of such proposals.

She added: “The role of the Dioceses Commission is to look at and if necessary rationalise diocesan boundaries throughout the country and it is currently looking at all the Yorkshire dioceses, that is York, Bradford, Ripon and Leeds, Wakefield and Sheffield.

“Whatever changes occur in the future, there has never been any suggestion that Bradford will be subsumed into another local diocese and our understanding is that there will always be a Bishop of Bradford and that Bradford will retain its discrete, local identity.

“Whatever the Diocese Commission’s report suggests it will have to be agreed by the Diocesan Synods of each individual Yorkshire diocese before eventually being discussed at General Synod.”

The Reverend John Hartley, vicar of St Luke’s Church in Eccleshill, said: “It’s nothing to do with falling congregation numbers. It’s about how we try and make administration as efficient as possible and there may well be an argument that the Bradford Diocese would be more effective as part of a larger body. Even if the Bradford Diocese is wound up and becomes part of a larger diocese it’s very likely there would continue to be a Bishop of Bradford.

“There is no longer a Diocese of Staffordshire but there is a Bishop of Staffordshire as part of the Lichfield Diocese. I hope there will be a change in diocesan boundaries and we will become part of a larger unit.”

The commission’s findings are due to be published in December. Nobody from the commission could be contacted yesterday.