Bishop Tom's home is his castle

Telegraph | News | Bishop defends his castle against invaders
It's a funny article this; maybe it's the way the Torygraph writes it? Anyway I started reading it and was thinking something like: "it's all very well for him to defend spending large sums of money to keep him in comfort and prestigiousness when there's clergy being made redundant [who could I mean?] ..." But then the article, rather late on really, says this:
The Bishop points out that he lives in a relatively modest six-bedroom apartment within the building, which also houses the diocesan offices and sits in a park open to the public. He believes most of the money raised from its sale - probably in excess of £2 million - would have to be spent on relocating him and the other offices. Plans are being drawn up to improve the profitability of the castle, which hires out rooms for conferences, events and weddings, to meet much of the building's annual £100,000 maintenance costs.

So why not say so? The actual riposte is that it scarcely costs the church commissioners anything to keep becuase the Bishop only uses a small part of it, the diocesan offices use the rest and the hire of the building pays for the the rest. Only one thing; is that really the case? A few paragraphs later we are being told that it is costly. I have to say that if it comes to a contest between keeping a castle for a bishop to live in and paying for mission ... keep the castle, no - sorry, do the mission.

In the last paragraph Bish Tom says:
"The question is whether this house actually enhances the ministry of the bishop or impedes the ministry of the bishop. In my view, it enormously enhances the ministry of the bishop."
Okay, I think that we need to agree what counts as enhancing here. It has to be said that Bishop Auckland is not the most accessible place in the world which is a disadvantage for a diocesan office centre, and take that away and does it really make sense? It's hard not to think that all the wrong signals about power, prestige, out-of-touchness, misaligned priorities etc compared with gospel values of humility, service, focus on the glory of God etc. I have a lot of time for Bishop Tom, I just wonder whether in this case, understandably, he's just a little bit unhappy at the prospect of having to move.