A church just faced a council ban on preaching and Nigel Farage is backing its fight
24 October 2026 · 24 October 2026Share
Courthouse on Price Road, Southend. File photo. H2g2bob · CC BY 4.0
A church in Essex is fighting a council order that could make its street preaching a crime.
Bread of Life Community Church is based in Clacton-on-Sea. Its members have gone out into Colchester city centre every week since 2022.
So what do they actually do there? They preach. They sing hymns. They hand out Bibles. They offer prayer and a conversation. They also collect for a food bank, and buy warm clothes and hot meals for homeless people.
And here's the problem. Colchester City Council has ordered them to stop.
About seven months ago, the council issued the church with a Community Protection Notice. That came through the Safer Colchester Partnership. It followed an earlier warning, issued about eleven months ago, telling the church to cut the amplified sound.
The notice goes further than that. It orders the church to stop using a loudspeaker at all. And it orders them to stop what the council calls engaging or intimidating behaviour.
Now, here's the detail that matters. The Christian Legal Centre, which represents the church, says this notice has no geographical limit. No volume threshold. No expiry date. So it is a blanket ban, not a noise limit.
And breaking it is a criminal offence.
This is believed to be the first time a council has used a notice like this against the ministry of a whole church, rather than against one person's conduct.
So how did we get here? The case has moved through the courts for months. At a hearing in Colchester back in May, Michael Phillips spoke for the church. He said the notice was the first attempt by a council to control the speech of a group.
Laura Austin spoke for the council at that hearing. She said a vulnerable man, helped by a carer, found the amplification too loud. She said he was told he was going to hell. She also raised allegations of homophobic comments and chants made to members of the public.
The rest of this story is for Silver and Gold members.
Colchester High Street. File photo. Amandajm · CC BY-SA 4.0
But here's the council's defence, in their own words. Laura Austin told the court, "This wasn't an attempt by a state body to censure a local religious group."
A further hearing followed in Colchester in August. Then a two-day appeal was listed, with day one set for two days ago and day two listed for Chelmsford Magistrates' Court in six days.
Now, two things here are not settled. First, the venue for day one. Christian Concern and Premier Christian News say it was Southend Magistrates' Court. Christian Today and a local Essex paper say it was Basildon Magistrates' Court.
Second, whether day one even happened. Christian Concern, who represent the church, say they were told two days before the hearing that it had been delayed until further notice, because a judge was not available. No report found confirms the hearing went ahead as planned.
The council says it has received multiple complaints over time about conduct that caused alarm and distress to the public. At the earlier hearing, its representative said the notice was never an attempt to censor religious expression.
And the public response has been loud. More than 27,000 people have signed a petition calling on the council to withdraw the notice. It was handed in six days ago.
Pastor Stephen Clayden says, "We have preached peacefully and lawfully in Colchester for many years and have sought to serve the community as well as share the Christian faith."
Andrea Williams, chief executive of the Christian Legal Centre, says the notice is breathtakingly broad, and bans all amplification regardless of volume, place or circumstances. Her organisation says the case could set a precedent: letting councils use anti-social behaviour powers to restrict not just how a message is delivered, but what it actually says.
And this case has political weight behind it. Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader and MP for Clacton, has met Pastor Stephen Clayden and has backed the church publicly.
So what happens now? Nobody yet knows what the magistrates will decide. Nobody yet knows when day one's hearing will actually happen. A ruling is not expected before the second hearing date.
Nothing here was paid for by an advertiser. Members are the entire business model. This story is Silver's: it opens everything we have ever written, and our investigations first.
