Is this a British thing or are there similar issues in the US?
Alas, we’re probably even worse off in the US. We had more money to do worse things to our churches and more money to build even more hideous new ones.
Things are changing now, but it’s going to take a long time to get rid of the hippie priests in their sneakers and tatty dirty albs and their airplane hangar churches with not even a cross visible.
Yes. It was the "thing to do" during the 70s.
Fortunately, there have been guidelines to rectify the situation (it used to be tradition -- small 't' -- and common sense before).
Also fortunately, they couldn't get their claws into all of the older, glorious, church buildings.
Similar issues in the US. Unless there is a conscious effort to recreate some well documented historical appearance, some of them can look pretty shabby, or so charmlessly modern you think you’re in a Toyota dealership. For years, St. Joseph’s on Capitol Hill was my parish and it was outstanding for its cracked and peeling greenish paint. To people of a certain age, the chasubles are a joke, and the younger ones don’t know the difference. I think it is a combination of lack of funds (after you’ve paid for the new roof, you might not want to splash out on a professional paint job) and truly, horribly, abysmal taste. Lucky the church that has the wherewithal and an interested someone with cultivated taste to take care of the building properly.
I’ve stepped into several non-Catholic churches with nary a cross or stained glass in sight.
Similar? Oh, yea.
Modern churches seem built with resale in mind.
They are about as sacred as strip mall.
What do Protestant churches have to offer? Not much from my experience in visiting them for funerals, weddings, etc.