Protecting our Historic Environment: Making the System Work Better

Questions

Q1.1 Would a unified List for England improve existing arrangements?

Ideally, yes. It would simplify matters if there were an accurate and up-to-date list of all structures and areas that had any form of protection (including ancient monuments, and archaeological areas). But creating that list would be an enormous task, as would keeping it up to date as structures enter or leave and as legislation changes. Since no one body could have the total control of the list there could be serious errors in it.

Moreover, the items that are currently in different lists are there for different reasons and the type of protection they warrant differs; scheduled ancient monuments, for instance, are properly preserved and protected from all change, while buildings in use are inevitably subject to change, and the system of protection is about managing that change.

In these days of web search engines, multiple lists with electronic links to a common listing area might be the way forward.

Q1.2 Is a power at national level to designate areas of historic importance necessary or useful? What would it add to the present conservation area designation? What issues would need to be resolved?

There should certainly continue to be power to designate Areas of Archaeological Importance at national level. This is a valuable power which should not have been allowed to fall into disuse.

Q2.1 Are the suggested safeguards sufficient to allow English Heritage to become responsible for maintaining the List?

Where designation is currently the responsibility of the Secretary of State, as with the listing of buildings and the scheduling of ancient monuments, it should remain with him, legally totally separate from the functions of English Heritage as guardian of many ancient monuments and as advising local authorities on listed buildings.

Q2.2 What other options might there be? For example, might English Heritage establish some form of independent committee to make the designation decisions?

The only other alternative to the present arrangement would be to move the whole English Heritage listing section to DCMS. We do not see how English Heritage could establish a Committee that was independent of itself.

How would CABE's advice on post-war buildings be factored in?

SCOLA has no view on this.

Q3 What criteria should be used to determine what item should be placed on the List?

A unified list would include many items where listing was determined by different criteria (eg. World Heritage sites by UNESCO). It should include important complex archaeological remains, like urban deposits, which would certainly fall within the definition of 'archaeological heritage' under the Valletta Convention, and can undoubtedly be of national importance. Where these are not appropriate for scheduling, the power to designate Areas of Archaeological Importance could perhaps be used. Economic circumstances and the like should not affect whether an item is to be placed on the list, though in the case of a building, for instance, they are relevant to any application for consent to demolish or alter.

Q4.1 Should the present gradings at I, II* and II be retained?

For buildings, yes, although they would probably not be appropriate for other classes of items on a unified list.

Q4.2 Should some of the items at grade II move onto local lists? What safeguards would be needed?

No.

Q5.1 Would a requirement for statements of significance help to establish for owners and the local authority what was important to conserve? How could the statements take account of the inevitable changes in values over time?

For scheduled monuments statements of significance are already being prepared through the Monuments Protection Programme process and they are also a key part of the development of management plans for World Heritage Sites, including candidate sites. These are valuable, but it would probably not be helpful to extend the concept to listed buildings where they may even be misleading, since there are often features hidden in a building which will be discovered only when works are undertaken on it. Similarly, a statement of significance for an Area of Archaeological Importance would have to be provisional, since without excavation it is impossible to be certain precisely what remains there are on a site.

Q5.2 What should be the process for drawing up statements of significance for existing listings?

SCOLA has little expertise on this, but would emphasise that drawing up such a statement requires knowledge of the whole national context, not just of a particular site or building.

Q5.3 Should maps take the place of the present definition based on curtilage?

Maps would be very helpful in some cases, but there are problems, as well as much labour, involved in producing really accurate maps to the scale required to define boundaries of monuments or the curtilage of listed buildings.Care should be taken not to draw the boundary too tightly, nor to follow current ownership where the site boundary may have changed since the curtilage was established.

Q6.1 Should the listing process become open and who should be consulted on an application?

Local archaeological and historical societies do often, in practice, participate in the process of deciding whether to list buildings, schedule ancient monuments etc., because it is they who have drawn them to the attention of English Heritage. This should continue, but we doubt whether the process should become formally open, because of the delay it would cause and the danger of demolition of buildings and depredation of monuments by metal-detectorists before controls were in place. (It is relevant that the very location of some archaeological sites has to be kept secret.)

Q6.2 Might there be different requirements for private properties which are lived in?

Not within the listed building regime. The strict controls on scheduled ancient monuments may not be appropriate when a structure is lived in.

Q6.3 Should protection be applied during the period when listing is under consideration?

No change is needed if the present system remains in place, as we desire. If, contrary to our view, the process is opened up, it is essential that the building, monument etc. be protected during that process, in order to prevent pre-emptive action.

Q7.1 Should there be a right of appeal? In what circumstances would a right of appeal be justified?

No. The time for an appeal is after an application for consent to demolish or alter has been turned down. Judicial Review is always there as a safeguard against gross maladministration by the listing or scheduling authority. It is hard to see how an appeal authority could be constituted with the expertise to second-guess the original listing or scheduling authority.

Q7.2 Should the suggested right of appeal apply just to owners or to other interested parties as well?

There should be no right of appeal at the listing or scheduling stage.

Q8.1 What kind of consent regime will be most appropriate for a unified list?

Local authorities cannot be expected to have any of the expertise necessary to make judgements about Scheduled Monument Consent. The great variety of ancient monuments and the small number of them in the areas of most local authorities mean that it may be unreasonable and uneconomic to expect them ever to get such expertise. It would be quite possible in a unified list to have different consent regimes, provided what they were was clearly indicated in respect of each item on the list. Consent regimes should be co-ordinated (as to forms, timing, etc.) rather than unified.

Should English Heritage seek to define individually at the time of listing what works will or will not require consent or should only generic rules be applied?

No. It is essential that the principles of informed conservation, the precautionary principle, risk management and the staged approach to decision-making — all of which are enshrined in the principles and practice of current legislation and policy — should be respected. It would be inappropriate to decide at the time of listing what works would or would not be allowed, and it would be impractical to review all the items at present on the various lists. Nor is it ever possible to foresee every possible alteration which may be proposed at some time in the future. However, much better generic guidelines on the kinds of activity that do need consent would help.

Q8.2 What generic arrangements would be suitable for historic areas?

Conservation areas are already covered by regimes of controls which have evolved over the years and work effectively. A more generalised scheme for historic areas, embracing also Areas of Archaeological Importance and Registers of Parks and Gardens and Battlefields, could provide somewhat stronger provisions than ordinary planning controls, and be capable of picking up threats not subject to planning or other consents. Many such areas encompass a wide range of heritage assets, so that a single set of provisions for all these could be both more integrated and more flexible.

Q9.1 How feasible are management agreements as an alternative to statutory consents and in what circumstances could they be most useful? What would be the essential components of such agreements?

The resource implications in negotiating and drawing up legally binding agreements would place a great burden on the authority responsible, be it a Council or English Heritage, and this effort is likely to be worthwhile only in the case of major complexes of heritage assets. In such cases they may obviate the need for individual consent to minor works. But for the vast majority of smaller assets the present rules should remain.

Q9.2 What safeguards are needed to ensure openness and rigour?

Any management agreements reached would have to be publicly available.

Q10, Q11 and Q12 relate to agri-environment schemes and agricultural operations and fall outside the direct remit of the Standing Conference on London Archaeology; we associate ourselves with the comments of the Council for British Archaeology.

Q13 What planning guidance on protection of the local historic environment would be of most value to local residents, authorities and developers?

More schemes are needed to encourage collaborative local involvement between groups covering archaeology, history, building preservation, civic concerns and planning. Local authorities need more resources to devote to effective outreach in this and other areas — including conservation area appraisals.

Q14 What would be the most productive way of encouraging local authorities to undertake conservation area appraisals?

What might be done to encourage them to set out bolder policies for enhancing rather than just preserving their conservation areas?

Proper resources, and more, and more effective, best practice guidelines from English Heritage.

Q15 Should there be a mechanism for preventing demolition of locally listed buildings without consent?

Yes.

Should this be linked to development proposals?

No.

What safeguards would be needed to ensure the quality of local lists?

Full involvement of local archaeological, historical and amenity societies.

Q16 How could an effective sub-regional team be created? Should it be primarily about developing guidance and sharing best practice or about facilitating casework and providing support to local authorities? What would be the benefits and downsides?

The paper, including the proposal at Paragraph 61, ignores the situation in London, where there is a Greater London Authority (GLA), and where English Heritage (EH) has unique functions, which it inherited when the Greater London Council was abolished. The Boroughs have (largely inadequate) sub-regional teams under a GLA which is still feeling its way — EH provides very necessary assistance. It would be possible to have a sub-regional team or teams located in the GLA, or in EH. It would be undesirable for the function to be divided between the GLA and EH. In any White Paper that follows this consultation, the special position of London will have to be covered specifically.

Q17 What are the important skill gaps and what action would be most effective to bring about swift change?

The greatest gap is that caused by the relatively low status of conservation officers in local authorities; that must be addressed. The principal skill gap is caused by the lack of resources in local authorities to recruit and retain expert staff who have the relevant skills.

Local authorities should engage the considerable expertise of local archaeological and historical societies.

Heritage protection generally should be one of the output measures of local authorities, and should be a key part of the local community strategy and community plan. Minimum levels of service should be defined within the best value regime and similar mechanisms.