The Methodist Church has written to the BBC Director General, Mark Thompson, to express its “deep concern” over changes made to the BBC’s Religion and Ethics department.

The department based in Manchester has been merged with the BBC Factual department into a new Factual and Religion department and will be managed from Birmingham.

In the letter to Mark Thompson, the Methodist Church said it was grateful for the “outstanding work of the BBC in the field of Religion and Ethics”, and praised the BBC for its “creativity and authority in their engagement with a vast range of ethical issues”.

It went on to say, however, that whilst the Church felt current programming enriched the lives of the audience, it also asked for reassurance that the new department would maintain the standard kept so far and “be given space and resources to creatively develop”.

The letter ended offering its prayerful support to all staff affected by the changes and was signed by Rev Dr Martyn Atkins, General Secretary of the British Methodist Church, Rev Stephen Poxon, President of the British Methodist Conference and Mr David Walton, Vice-President of the British Methodist Conference.