Examination of Witnesses (Questions 160-166)
2 FEBRUARY 2004
MR SIMON
THURLEY AND
MS DEBORAH
LAMB
Q160 Sir Paul Beresford: If a local authority
and a developer come to you looking for help and they say it is
just hopeless and this concrete 1950s mushroom in the middle of
Coventry building site should be bulldozed, are you ever prepared
to consider that is for real and actually advise the minister?
Mr Thurley: I cannot emphasise
enough that listing a building is not pickling it in aspic. Listing
a building does not mean that you cannot knock it down, listing
a building does not mean that you cannot change it. As I said
before, the crucial element here is what management regime you
put to a listed building, what you do with it once it has been
listed.
Q161 Sir Paul Beresford: What if the
decision is that it should be bulldozed?
Mr Thurley: That is one of the
options. There is currently a presumption in favour of keeping
a building which is listed, but on occasions they are not kept
and they are either radically altered or sometimes taken down.
We really do want to move away from this notion that listing or
delisting is the key thing. The key thing is what happens once
you have identified a building as being of significance and what
process then takes place to find a long-term, economic, viable
use for that building so it can make a big contribution to the
community. The number of listed building cases that we deal with
which actually end up being in some way a blockage is absolutely
miniscule.
Q162 Sir Paul Beresford: Do you think
that when you asked people in your MORI poll how important they
felt historic listed buildings to be, they realised that listed
buildings include some 1950s and 1960s monstrosities, at least
monstrosities from my point of view?
Mr Thurley: The public is incredibly
aware of the programme which has been going on for the last 15
to 20 years to list post-war buildings; in fact it has been driven
very heavily by public taste.
Q163 Christine Russell: You have tried
to impress upon us this afternoon how committed you are to operating
in real world scenarios and Deborah just told us about the need
to improve the skills base. My question to you is: do you know
what percentage of your frontline advisory staff who meet daily
with property owners and local authorities has a degree in archaeology?
The reason I ask that question is because in my previous existence
as chair of a planning committee, virtually everyone I ever met
from English Heritage had a degree in archaeology. So I am just
asking you what the percentage is. You may not know off the top
of your head.
Mr Thurley: It would certainly
be interesting to find out precisely. What we would say is that
historically English Heritage has been an organisation which has
been driven by archaeologists because archaeology was the thing
which used to be protected and buildings were only introduced
into the frame relatively recently. What we can say is that we
try to field archaeologists where archaeological issues are involved.
Chester amphitheatre is a very good example; obviously archaeologists
are involved in that.
Q164 Christine Russell: Do not forget
the Georgian tea house.
Mr Thurley: We have not forgotten
that. I can assure you that it would be impossible to forget that,
given Chester's views about it. We also do make sure that our
architects, our planners, our historians are involved and I think
you will find that the proportion of archaeologists dealing with
buildings issues these days is very small.
Q165 Chairman: I am sure we are going
to hear from other witnesses later on about the benefits of investing
in historic buildings in terms of drawing in other investment.
Have you ever undertaken an assessment of the additional costs
which can occur to developments as a result of listing?
Mr Thurley: We have actually got
some information on that, but I do not have it at my fingertips.
Q166 Chairman: Is that something you
could supply to the Committee?
Mr Thurley: If I am right that
we have it, I am sure we can.
Chairman: That would be most helpful.
On that note, may I thank you for your evidence.
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