Government scraps heritage protection "to boost economy"

[Gareth Hughes]

Not quite (yet), but very nearly. An announcement from the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills on the back of yesterday's Chancellor's Statement:

http://www.bis.gov.uk/assets/biscor...cs/i/11-1413-implementation-of-penfold-review

The Government’s aim is to minimise the burden of complying with development consents, and to de-regulate entirely where it is appropriate. To do so the Government has identified the following measures that would exempt more developments from needing consents, reduce the information applicants are required to submit, and reduce complexity when development consents are applied for at the same time as planning permission. These measures will also allow the public agencies which administer development consents to focus upon the highest risk areas and thus deliver a more efficient service.
A) The Government will, subject to Parliamentary time, introduce the following measures to simplify and reduce costs associated with the heritage protection system
A1. Developers must apply for Listed Building Consent if they wish to undertake works that would impact on the special historic or architectural interest of a listed building. Given there are 375, 000 listed buildings in England this is one of the most regularly applied for development consents. To reduce the number of unnecessary applications, the Government will enable the extent of a listed building’s special interest to be legally defined in its list entry – so only those parts of a building that contribute to its special interest are protected by regulation, removing the requirement to apply for a consent for works that impact other parts of the building...
...C) English Heritage will undertake a programme to update the list entries of listed buildings
To enable a more flexible approach to be taken to re-development of listed buildings, particularly to support measures A1 and A3, the Government will commission English Heritage to begin a programme to update the list entries of listed buildings, providing more detail on the special interest of listed buildings. This will ensure that those parts of a building of special interest are protected by regulation, and parts of a building that are not listed are not subject to Listed Building Consent. The programme will start with enhancing the listings of C20th office buildings – a category subject to regular applications for works by businesses.

EH to use their magic X-ray vision to establish and legally define every bit of special interest that’s hidden, and a complete resurvey of listed buildings, which presumably will require powers to force entry by “Heritage Snoopers”, all somehow achieved on EH’s reduced budget. Of course, under the existing legislation, work that doesn't affect the special interest of a LB doesn't need consent anyway, so it's difficult to see exactly what change this is proposing.

B) The Government will consult on further measures to simplify and reduce costs associated with the heritage protection system
B1. Nearly nine out of ten applications for Listed Building Consent are approved. A more risk-based approach would focus enforcement on those applications most likely to impact a building’s special interest, enabling a lighter touch approach for non-controversial applications. This would lighten the burden on developers whilst allowing public agencies to focus their resources on higher risk applications. Therefore the Government will consult on options for introducing a system of prior-approval for specified types of works to listed buildings. Under the system Listed Building Consent would be deemed granted if the local planning authority does not respond to a developer’s notification by requesting a full application within a specified time period.
B2. Local authorities rely upon their conservation officers to provide advice on granting Listed Building Consent. To expand the market for that advice and increase choice and flexibility for developers, the Government will consult on options for allowing certification of applications for Listed Building Consent by accredited independent agents.

Freelance (ie developer-funded) no-win, no-fee conservation officers. How's that supposed to work?

 

[Gareth Hughes]

Some further thoughts on just how effective all this will be:

To reduce the number of unnecessary applications, the Government will enable the extent of a listed building’s special interest to be legally defined in its list entry – so only those parts of a building that contribute to its special interest are protected by regulation, removing the requirement to apply for a consent for works that impact other parts of the building.
...
To enable a more flexible approach to be taken to re-development of listed buildings, particularly to support measures A1 and A3, the Government will commission English Heritage to begin a programme to update the list entries of listed buildings, providing more detail on the special interest of listed buildings. This will ensure that those parts of a building of special interest are protected by regulation, and parts of a building that are not listed are not subject to Listed Building Consent.

The government doesn't seem to have noticed that, under the existing legislation, work that doesn't affect the special interest of a LB doesn't need consent anyway,

Subject to the following provisions of this Act, no person shall execute or cause to be executed any works for the demolition of a listed building or for its alteration or extension in any manner which would affect its character as a building of special architectural or historic interest, unless the works are authorised.

so it's difficult to see exactly why any change is needed. The government will be wasting a huge amount of time and public money simply to confirm what is already the case. I don’t see what the proposal will achieve beyond introducing further uncertainty by making a fact of the current myth that there are such things as listed buildings of which only parts are listed.

And of course, under the current VAT regime (for all its many faults and absurdities), the fewer works that are deemed to require consent, the fewer works will attract zero-rating, so the cost of many developments involving listed buildings will effectively be increased by 20% under the government’s proposals…

Woo hoo! Go Coalition!!!

 

[Horace]

Must confess I haven't read every line of this but I am interested in the comment that it's only the "special bits" that are protected under the current legislation. The gist of all the advice on this forum seems to be that you can't sneeze on a piece of lime mortar without asking for listed buildings consent. I can't really reconcile this to the comments made about the proposed revisions to the law. Also, if the law currently is as flexbile as is suggested, it seems that there are some particularly unhelpful COs who are not properly applying the legislation as it now stands.

I thought (cynically) about the VAT point too but with commercial buildings the VAT will generally be recoverable under the "opt to tax" rules and in other scenarios (conversions etc) the 5% rate will be available.

My personal view is that the law seems to apply to the small guy trying to sypathetically uupdate his house (becuase he can be bullied) but not to the large developer who has clout to kick the council's arse. The result seems to be sad losses of complete buildings but no tolerance for small alterations.

 

[Gareth Hughes]

The present (1990) legislation states:

no person shall execute or cause to be executed any works for the demolition of a listed building or for its alteration or extension in any manner which would affect its character as a building of special architectural or historic interest, unless the works are authorised

I find the fact that the government (wrongly) seems to think that what it is proposing represents a change from that situation (otherwise why propose it?), to a control regime which makes it easier to make alterations to listed buildings, far more disturbing than the idea that conservation officers may occasionally want to make an informed decision on whether a certain proposal affects the character of a listed building and that providing the necessary information might hold up development for a few weeks.

 

[Lime]

My personal view is that the law seems to apply to the small guy trying to sypathetically uupdate his house (becuase he can be bullied) but not to the large developer who has clout to kick the council's arse. The result seems to be sad losses of complete buildings but no tolerance for small alterations.

I completely agree with that statement.

 

[Gareth Hughes]

It can't be entirely true, as clearly the government is proposing (unneccessary) changes to the law not to benefit the "small guy" but to benefit whichever big developer it was (and who has Uncle Eric Pickles' ear) that objected to having to wait a couple of months for their LBC to come through...

 

[Lime]

It can't be entirely true, as clearly the government is proposing (unneccessary) changes to the law not to benefit the "small guy" but to benefit whichever big developer it was (and who has Uncle Eric Pickles' ear) that objected to having to wait a couple of months for their LBC to come through...

I think the statement with which I agreed still stands, just that the bias towards the developer is yet greater.

 

[JoceAndChris]

I'm so sad to read this. It sounds such a stupid waste of time. You can't make the special character of a building a list of black and white attributes - it has to be down to the judgement of a well trained specialist/s in historic buildings, even if that judgement upsets the householder or developer from time to time.

No wonder EH have been dragging their heels on listing BC, and Melissa did say that she's very busy delisting most of the time. I bet they have a secret agenda not to list anymore. And if listing will in the future offer as little protection as this seems to imply I suppose I can't get too upset if the house isn't listed.

It seems like the system is going into chaos, the jobs of COs are under a vague threat, and the little that's left of our lovely built heritage more endangered than ever.

A growing population, a crumbling economy, the green incentives to make the house perform differently - all conspire to make me feel particularly bleak about how our period properties will be conserved into the future. I just don't know what can be done.

 

[Gareth Hughes]

It can't be entirely true, as clearly the government is proposing (unneccessary) changes to the law not to benefit the "small guy" but to benefit whichever big developer it was (and who has Uncle Eric Pickles' ear) that objected to having to wait a couple of months for their LBC to come through...

I think the statement with which I agreed still stands, just that the bias towards the developer is yet greater.

Yes, the fact that the government's priority for EH is to "enhance" the listings of 20th century office buildings rather suggests that what is and isn't important to the character of a Georgian farmhouse is not going to get sorted until sometime next century...

 

[MatthewC]

My personal view is that the law seems to apply to the small guy trying to sypathetically uupdate his house (becuase he can be bullied) but not to the large developer who has clout to kick the council's arse. The result seems to be sad losses of complete buildings but no tolerance for small alterations.

I completely agree with that statement.

And I completely agree with you, Lime. That is exactly my experience in doing small alterations on a house, and is also my observation of how large companies (e.g. T**co and S*******y's to mention but two) go about planning proposals. It's quite clear who has the power!

 

[Flyfisher]

EH to use their magic X-ray vision to establish and legally define every bit of special interest that’s hidden, and a complete resurvey of listed buildings, which presumably will require powers to force entry by “Heritage Snoopers”, all somehow achieved on EH’s reduced budget.

The thing is though, if our GII* house is anything to go by, the listing description is not particularly detailed anyway - and that was based on someone visiting it inside and out when it was listed at the end of the 80s.

I've successfully gone through the LBC process twice but I reckon I could have just gone ahead and carried out those works anyway and nobody would be able to tell, based on the listing description.

For example, we've got a right old mixture of wall materials from very old lath and hair-lime plaster to plasterboard. if I were to rip out all the lath and plaster and replace it with plasterboard, nobody would be able to prove it when it was done and the listing would provide not supporting evidence that the plasterboard was not already there at the time of listing.

It's the old story about laws only being for the law-abiding because the non-law-abiding will just ignore them anyway.

 

[Keithj]

Sadly true.

We were very good children when we repaired the house, and kept the CO fully informed and involved all the way through. He blanched when we mentioned replacing the totally rotten downstairs windows and "double glazing" (apparently anathema). He was somewhat surprised to be shown that the old and rotten ones were double glazed.

There are no records of what we actually have that I could see, beyond the few very generic lines in the listing. Had we been naughty children, like the builder who "restored" the place with large amounts of concrete 15 years ago, we'd probably have got away with it.

We want to build a loo and kitchen extension on the side of the G1 Parish Church, accessed through the now blocked-off north door. We are told EH will not give consent to any kind of extension on a G1 church. We would be allowed to steal some of the (needed) interior space to partition off a loo and a kitchen, but not build one on. There's a strong undercurrent of "this is not a museum, it's a working church, and it needs to retain its useability". Ho hum. The Victorian vestry extension didn't have that problem.

 

[Gareth Hughes]

I'm currently dealing with three extensions to Grade I churches, EH (and I) don't have a problem with two of them, the third is a lousy design and quite rightly won't go through until it's been rethought completely. Examples where it's truly impossible to extend are few and far between - though my gripe with the C of E has always been that nowadays it's far too timid, and when building an extension that may be there for 200 years seems to default to the flint clad portakabin style. Oh, for a fraction of the confidence the Victorians had!

 

[Keithj]

Intriguing!

Are you in Suffolk, perchance? Could it be a "local" EH opinion here?

We've regrouped from the earlier "Don't even think it" session (which was just before I arrived). We are now working on the plan we want, with detailed explanations and "statements", and will see what happens when the consultations with DAC and EH etc etc etc get under way.

The limiting factor for the C of E (well, this bit) is availability of funds versus needs to be met. In a previous parish, we had a plan for a small vestry extension and the £100k to pay for it. The "suggestion" sent back to us by the DAC after the expert visit was costed at £600k. It was very nice, but provided no more space and no more facility. The money went elsewhere and the space problem remains to this day (ten years later).

 

[Gareth Hughes]

Might be local EH opinion, though I'm a bit further north than you. Does Mrs Adam (think round about it) mean anything in an EH context?

 

[Keithj]

I don't know the name, I'm afraid. This is information from "the centre".

We're planning on trundling down the road with well-researched stuff, miscellaneous surveys (pews, newts, bats, etc) and a design that we like and can afford.

 

[Feltwell]

Although it is not the extension solution you are after, I thought this was a neat and reversible way to incorporate a kitchen of modern standards within the main body of a church. A lot cheaper than an extension as well I would think.

Scroll down on the page past the pews:-

http://www.shropshire-woodsmiths.co.uk/index.php?p=1_14_Ecclesiastical-

A shame that the floor in that unused area has been so butchered in the past, especially those access chamber covers which are still visible afterwards! And I'm surprised the right hand doors were left to be much darker than the rest of the unit - maybe the darker pieces are the "existing screen" spoken about, and the rest will darken naturally to match with time. Other than that it looks a really neat, reversible and unobtrusive way to create a practical and clean area.

However, I realise of course that it needs internal space which may not always be available.

 

[Keithj]

That is nice, but we have two problems:

1. It's a village church, and for many events the whole village (well, almost) turns up and the place is packed, with some in the porch or outside listening on the loudspeakers. We really don't want to lose space to a loo and a kitchen. We shouldn't need to!

2. There's a (blocked) north door leading into what is at the moment a clump of pruned Leylandii (I know, don't tell me!). We'd like to remove the trees and put a well-designed loo, kitchen and entrance foyer there.

We have a design we like, made of stone and glass. We're working now to produce the documentation needed. The scariest part so far is the cost of the expert surveys.

 

[Moo]

Would it be possible to unblock the door and erect a (freestanding) posh wooden room just outside it?
Not only would it be reversible, it would also be much, much cheaper.

 

[Pford75]

I agree with Gareth and others that this seems like a slippery slope to abandonment of protection for listed buildings. It will prove almost impossible to survey all the listed buildings thoroughly.

However, I do disagree with this statement...

by Gareth Hughes » Wed 30th Nov, 2011 1:48 pm

The present (1990) legislation states:



no person shall execute or cause to be executed any works for the demolition of a listed building or for its alteration or extension in any manner which would affect its character as a building of special architectural or historic interest, unless the works are authorised


I find the fact that the government (wrongly) seems to think that what it is proposing represents a change from that situation (otherwise why propose it?), to a control regime which makes it easier to make alterations to listed buildings, far more disturbing than the idea that conservation officers may occasionally want to make an informed decision on whether a certain proposal affects the character of a listed building and that providing the necessary information might hold up development for a few weeks.

We have the crazy situation currently, where LBC is being required to grant permission to replace modern plastic guttering with cast iron 'period style' guttering. In our previous house, we were forced to make LBC applications for this and for the replacement of modern concrete ridge tiles (even though it was likely that both items were changes made without LBC in the first place). Each application required the usual plethora of forms, drawings, design and access statements etc. Without factoring in the cost of my own time, each application cost us £300+. I'm all for protecting listed buildings, but this is just local authority bureaucracy.

I doubt this will change much for the householder, but it does seem that developers will plough ahead in the destruction of period buildings