The Bishop of Bradford the Right Rev Nick Baines has a new role.

He has been appointed bishop of the new Church of England Diocese of West Yorkshire and the Dales.

Under the new set-up, the Bradford diocese will be subsumed in a ‘super diocese’ together with Leeds, Ripon, Huddersfield and Wakefield, each of which will have an area bishop by the end of the year.

Bishop Baines’s appointment was announced on Tuesday last week, and that day he visited each of the five areas that will make up the biggest diocese in the country.

“I have not taken this appointment lightly,” he said. “I have agreed to this with hope, vision and realism.”

The Bishop, 56, and his wife, Linda, were also looking at their new home in Leeds The biggest diocese in the country comes into being on Easter Sunday, April 20, and for his new job as Bishop of West Yorkshire and the Dales, the Rt Rev Baines faces three enthronements in Bradford, Ripon and Wakefield in the summer.