Examination of Witnesses (Questions 40-59)
26 JANUARY 2004
MR MARTIN
BACON, MR
EDDIE BOOTH
AND MR
DAVE CHETWYN
Q40 Christine Russell: In general, what
you are saying is that there is a willingness on the part of local
authorities to go out and consult with local communities
Mr Bacon: Yes, I think so
Q41 Christine Russell: It is jut that
the consultation process is not being run very competently, it
is not very well organised
Mr Bacon: I think sometimes it
seems as just an add on
Q42 Christine Russell: Can I ask both
of you the question that I put to the three cities who have just
given evidence, which is how you would comment on this argument
that, so often, heritage-led regeneration seems to lead to gentrification,
rising house prices and small businesses being forced out of the
area. Do you feel that that is a problem and, if it is, how should
we tackle it?
Mr Bacon: I think that the gentlemen
from Newcastle and Manchester had the answer. If you just see
urban regeneration as a physical thing and not a social economic
thing as well, then you are going to get that result We have moved
on a lot since the sixties when we just drew lines around conservation
areas and we gave grants and so on—we have moved a long
way since then—and one talks to housing authorities and
housing associations and there is a collective partnership as
to how you can bring all those agencies in to get the best balance
that is considered right for that area It is not the problem of
a care for heritage buildings that pushes the prices up, it is
the housing market because the whole issue of intervention in
the housing market is possible for a whole range of mechanisms
that are not being applied in that particular area. So, we should
not kick the horse that is delivering the benefit
Mr Booth: Can I add that you could
make the same argument for new development. It is not the heritage
factor necessarily that is driving the argument that you have
put. In Docklands, for instance, both new world development, similar
effects. So, it is not just to do with heritage regeneration.
The other factor is perhaps that creating value is what it is
all about and how you deal with value is another issue, and whether
you create value and make compensatory gestures elsewhere or whatever—there
are ways and means I am sure, but we are interested in creating
value
Q43 Christine Russell: So, what you are
saying is that where the local authority has a determination to
create an inclusive development where there are important historic
buildings, that can actually happen if they are determined from
the outset but that they are going to have affordable houses,
affordable workspaces, etc
Mr Booth: I believe so, yes.
Mr Chetwyn: Could I add as well
that much of the built heritage is not in these high-profile areas
we have heard of. There is much that just is the fabric of everyday
life. I work with a number of residents and a number of small
businesses and medium-size businesses, community/amenity groups
etc and it is just the everyday buildings. It is part of the fabric
of our cities. So, there, the value thing tends to come in where
you get a concentration of inner city regeneration and where you
get new housing markets. That can be good as well particularly
again coming from a city that has suffered from suppressed land
values, that city living market and trying to raise values as
part of a city, that is actually an essential part of regeneration
and attracting the right kind of employment and opportunities
into the area. You need some of that but much of heritage regeneration
is small scale and more scattered.
Q44 Christine Russell: So, you would
totally rebut the argument that is sometimes made that it is just
a kind of rather precious group of people who care about our historic
environment. You say that, in your experience and in the work
you do, people do care and do want to protect.
Mr Chetwyn: Yes, absolutely and
that includes businesses as well
Q45 Christine Russell: Can I ask you
about your members because some of the submissions that we received
in fact were rather critical—I put it kindly like that—of
the calibre of local authority conservation officers.
Mr Booth: I have heard a lot of
third-hand anecdote on this kind of thing and I can tell you that
no complaint has ever been addressed directly to the Institute.
That quite surprises me but I am ready to investigate any complaints.
Q46 Christine Russell: The complaints
we have are that there is a lack of awareness of the real world
and you want to preserve everything at all costs—those are
the main criticisms—and that you are standing in the way
of good redevelopment schemes.
Mr Booth: We have a problem that
there is a very low level of recruitment for conservation officers.
We, in partnership with English Heritage, did a survey of local
authorities conservation provision in 2002-03 and, yes, 85% of
local authorities had some expertise but, in 5% of those authorities,
that expertise is fractional, ie less than one person. So, under-resourcing
is a huge problem. If I were to tell you that the City of Chichester
has no conservation officer, you would probably be as scandalised
as I am. We have a resource problem.
Q47 Christine Russell: Is that because
young people are just not attracted into the profession because
it is such lousy wages?
Mr Booth: Quite possibly, yes.
Q48 Christine Russell: Rather than the
status.
Mr Booth: You might say that the
whole of town planning is suffering to some extent from lack of
charisma perhaps compared with other opportunities in life. I
certainly have not pushed my daughter into it. Yes, you could
say that.
Mr Chetwyn: If I could add that
there are a number of conservation officers and a number of planners
involved in conservation who are actually involved in regeneration.
The team I work for, which deals with design and conservation,
is actually part of the Directorate of Regeneration in the Community.
Much of what we do is proactive work, putting together funding
packages, helping local developers, local businesses and people
like that to actually take their schemes and projects forward.
I think we should not get the view that conservation officers
are purely about a policing role. There is also that proactive
side. That needs real realism and real awareness of what local
markets will take. Also, on the other side, on the development
control side, it depends on the developer. You get very, very
aware developers, very good developers; they come forward with
the right professional teams, and it is often not really a problem
going through the planning process. You get someone who is employing
kitchen table designs, the sort of cheap sort of design firm,
and you do run into difficulties there and inevitably the planning
process is there to make sure that people take account of the
external impacts of their development, including on other businesses
and other developers. Some people are not going to like that ever,
I think.
Q49 Christine Russell: So, we should
view conservation officers as cherished endangered species rather
than obstacles to development in historical areas?
Mr Chetwyn: Well, I just think
that they are often more proactive and the sort of tank-top wearing
stereotype often does not have a lot to do with reality.
Q50 Christine Russell: Could I just get
a view from the Civic Trust on local authority conservation officers.
I know that you work with them very closely.
Mr Bacon: I think they are very
hard-pressed individuals, by and large, and that they are doing
a pretty good job in a pretty bad environment.
Q51 Christine Russell: Why do you say
that? Do you say that because they are not valued by local authorities?
Mr Bacon: Because they are suffering
from the lack of forward thinking that is in the planning system.
We run our planning systems in this country on the basis of development
control rather than the locally planned forward plans and that
is what thwarts the development industry who see opportunities
for investment and change but the planning system is not up to
date. So, what happens is that they come in with their proposals
and often the conservation officer is the last one between them
and a duty to look after the historic environment. So, they get
lumbered with the whole problem. I think that sometimes they are
unfairly challenged in that respect. In a former existence, I
spent nine years as a city town director at Canterbury City Council
and I can inform you that my conservation officers actually got
the private sector out of a lot of "holes" in buildings
that they had actually purchased without doing the proper survey
work. So, there is another story to be told on this as well.
Q52 Mr Clelland: Can I go back to something
Mr Bacon said a few moments ago when he was referring to community
groups and I think I heard him right when he said that they do
not understand how the money machine works.
Mr Bacon: Yes.
Q53 Mr Clelland: Also, in evidence, the
Civic Trust have said, "Many local groups are anxious to
save and restore historic buildings but cannot compete with professional,
financial and development interests." Mr Bacon, could you
perhaps say how community groups could play a greater part with
the benefit of additional funding and how such funding could be
made more accessible to community groups.
Mr Bacon: There is a range of
funds for community and groups like the Civic Trust and civic
societies. English Heritage and the Heritage Lottery Fund provide
some funding for voluntary community groups and both recognise
in their funding the value of volunteers as value in kind in assessing
grant claims. English Heritage's funding sources are very, very
limited, very limited indeed, and one is hard pressed to get hold
of them at the local level. The Heritage Lottery Fund is very
project orientated, so you have to have a project in order to
get the money for infrastructure. It seems to me that what we
could be looking at is more sustained further funding for certain
voluntary groups in areas where we know through the development
planning process or through RDA work or something that there is
going to be a 15-20 year project of regeneration of some size
and those groups could be supported in their infrastructure in
order that they can make the considerable contribution that they
can make through their knowledge and their understanding of how
services join up at particular local level.
Q54 Mr Clelland: Where will that sustained
funding come from?
Mr Bacon: I think it has to come
from the public and private agencies involved in development.
One would be surprised at what civic society and voluntary groups
exist on in their budgets. I have been to the AGM and some of
these bodies have £2,000 a year and they run the whole of
their advocacy service and the work they do on that, so we are
talking about very small sums of money. I just think that it needs
a willingness of people to say, "Right, we do think you are
valued, we do think that you have something to say. Can we get
round a table and share with you our constraints as a developer
from the funding regimes that are affecting us from the city in
order that you understand our constraints as well as we understand
yours" and then get that dialogue going forward. I think
it is very important and that not enough of that takes place.
Q55 Chairman: Mr Bacon, you refer in
your evidence to the Shimizu judgment where it is possible to
very much take the middle of the building out and just keep the
façade. If a building is unlisted and it has townscape
value, why is fac"adism wrong in that circumstance?
Mr Bacon: I will ask my colleagues
on my right-hand side to deal with that if I may, Chairman, because
we have talked about this before and they know more about this
judgment in practice than I do.
Mr Booth: I would say that Shimizu
is not just about coring out an historic building, it is about
the definition of what is partial demolition and that does not
just mean behind a retained façade. Façadism, to
answer your question, is the problem because, if a building is
worth keeping, it is worth keeping for its meaning: the front
informs the back and the back informs the front, so to speak.
Our concern is more about the erosion of character of conservation
areas and the lack of control over that, and Shimizu takes away
one of the planks that was available to local authorities in controlling
partial demolition.
Q56 Chairman: If you want to preserve
the identity that the façade contributes and enable the
interior to be applied for modern usage, whether that be disabled
access or air-conditioning for new technology or whatever, then
surely the inside is more important in what it can be applied
to now than its historical value.
Mr Booth: Certainly if the interior
were hugely important, then perhaps the building would be listed
and a whole set of other considerations would apply. We are interested
in flexibility in the reuse of buildings, particularly those that
are not listed but make a contribution to the character of a conservation
area, but I come back to the point that it is not just this coring
out that Shimizu addressed.
Q57 Chairman: So, you do not see this
as an excessively preservationist perspective?
Mr Booth: To resist Shimizu?
Q58 Chairman: Yes.
Mr Booth: No, I do not.
Mr Chetwyn: I think that a half-demolished
building in the middle of an area can do a lot to harm confidence
in that area. This basically allows a lot of damage to the external
townscape to be done. I think that is why it is important to address
Shimizu.
Q59 Christine Russell: Mr Bacon, I have
just been pondering further on your reply to my earlier question.
You made what I thought was a very interesting comment about the
lack of forward thinking in local authority planning departments.
My question to you is, do you feel that the measures contained
in the new Planning and Compulsory Purchase Bill will have any
influence whatsoever perhaps on changing attitudes and priorities
in local authority planning departments?
Mr Bacon: Speaking bluntly, no.
I think the issue, as here, is about resources, skills and working
together. The Trust's view is that the current planning system
has been made to work better with extra skills and resources.
We do not need the changes that are going through.
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