Examination of Witnesses (Questions 280-299)
9 FEBRUARY 2004
YVETTE COOPER
MP, RT HON
LORD MCINTOSH
OF HARINGEY
AND MICHAEL
SEENEY
Q280 Andrew Bennett: I accept you cannot
tell us on this one, but you should be able to tell us when you
are going to complete the process.
Yvette Cooper: No, I cannot tell
you that at this stage. I am very happy to get back to the committee
as soon as we are able to do so. What we can do in the meantime
is recognise that what this PPG does is set out the need for conservation
and regeneration. It does encourage local authorities as part
of their process to identify the opportunities for regeneration
with historic buildings. I think we can do more in the meantime
to support local authorities in the way that they use PPG15 and
the best example of that is the work with English Heritage to
develop a training package for all local authorities to use in
terms of how they can best approach historic buildings and how
that can link with regeneration as well, so I think we can do
that in the short term, regardless of the PPG15 process, to enable
better interpretation of it.
Q281 Sir Paul Beresford: When is that
going to happen?
Yvette Cooper: That is in process
at the moment—
Q282 Sir Paul Beresford: Before Christmas?
Yvette Cooper: — and is
likely to be published this year and there will be a whole series
of regional training seminars. The work is being done by English
Heritage. I think the ODPM is putting investment into that process
and sponsoring that process as well and there will be a series
of regional training seminars for people working in local authorities,
working in regeneration in different areas.
Q283 Sir Paul Beresford: The answer is
before Christmas?
Yvette Cooper: Before this Christmas,
yes. We expect the process to be completed before this Christmas
because the regional training seminars need to take place this
year.
Q284 Mr O'Brien: Your department has
issued a draft guidance and a Planning Policy Statement 12 on
the proposed Local Development Frameworks. Will the specific guidance
on heritage-led regeneration in relation to area action plans
and proposals for community involvement be strengthened? You did
refer to taking part in something in your constituency, but on
the issue of the Planning Policy Statement can we expect further
guidance as to the development of community involvement?
Yvette Cooper: Yes. We clearly
want stronger roles for local communities at an early stage and
the Planning Bill sets out that we expect local communities to
be involved at a much earlier stage in the development of local
plans than has previously been the case. The Statement for Community
Involvement, the SCI, referred to in the Bill, is the critical
way for doing that. We want to set out more guidance and more
information about how that should work and what the process should
be. I think that is an opportunity both for local communities
to be much more closely involved at an earlier stage and for local
stakeholders, and that may involve heritage groups and heritage
and historical societies and organisations as well, to be involved
at a much earlier stage in the process.
Q285 Mr Cummings: The Historic Environment:
A Force for Our Future, the 2001 Policy Statement, makes a
number of recommendations, 54 in all. Some of these recommendations
are relevant to urban regeneration. Would you like to tell the
committee what progress has been made on these, for example, on
the co-ordination of agencies, equalisation of VAT and the creation
of the Historic Attractions Unit?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: We
have about ready to be issued in the form of a written statement
a list of the progress on the 54 recommendations from A Force
for Our Future, and I am hoping that that can come out within
the next few days, in other words, while the committee is still
considering its remit.
Q286 Mr Cummings: So it has taken three
years?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: Oh,
no. We have issued one progress report already, in March 2003,
and we undertook to do it roughly on an annual basis. We kept
to our commitment last year and we are keeping to our commitment
this year as to making a report. Some of the 54 are relatively
trivial and some of them are of enormous importance. In particular
I would like if I might to draw your attention to the review of
heritage protection, the designation review, which we launched
after commissioning Geoffrey Wilson and a working party to produce
a report on it. We launched it last July. We have carried out
an extensive consultation on that. It is of very great importance
here because it does propose bringing together the listing of
historic buildings and the scheduling of monuments into a single
procedure which should be much easier to understand, much fairer
for all those involved and continue to provide good protection
for historic buildings. We are almost ready to publish a report
on that as well.
Q287 Mr Cummings: So when do you think
you will be reporting on all 54 recommendations? When will that
exercise be finished?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: We
will report on progress towards all the 54 within the next few
days. Clearly there are issues here which require legislation
and some of them I cannot say will be completed, but if I look
at the list in front of me a very significant number of them are
recorded as being completed.
Q288 Mr Cummings: This is to the Office
of the Deputy Prime Minister. Independent evaluations which are
being undertaken on behalf of English Heritage reveal that heritage-led
regeneration schemes can be very effective at delivering mainstream
regeneration objectives. Would you agree that this is a significant
argument for directing more regeneration funding towards heritage-led
schemes, perhaps through guidance to the Regional Development
Agencies?
Yvette Cooper: What we would not
want to do is go as far as separate ring-fencing. Where I think
the evaluation you are talking about is right is that there are
very considerable opportunities for regeneration that often lie
in using historic buildings in a different way, whether it be
as physical opportunities, beautiful infrastructure or as tourist
attractions or redevelopment opportunities in all kinds of different
ways, and that often the problem you can have is that things can
polarise. You either end up with people thinking that the only
option for regeneration is to knock the whole lot down or alternatively
the only thing you can do for a beautiful historic building is
preserve it in aspic and not use it for anything constructive.
What is happening is that there is a big resurgence of the view
that comes between those two poles, that you can re-use historic
buildings in all kinds of different ways and that this can have
huge regeneration potential. There is quite a lot of evidence
already that Regional Development Agencies are starting to support
this in the programmes that they are sponsoring in different areas
and that English Partnerships are now working increasingly on
different projects with historical dimensions as well. More resources
are going to these different bodies, whether regional development
agencies, which are getting increases in investment, or English
Partnerships which is getting an increase from £359 million
to £493 million next year, or the EPCS whose formula spending
share has been increased; and there is also the Planning Delivery
Grant. We need to ensure that all these different organisations
recognise the economic benefits of using historic buildings in
the right kind of way. That is where the training package being
developed with English Heritage has very considerable potential,
and also some of the culture change programmes that are underway.
That is the approach that we are interested to take, to support
better information and better skills and expertise for the bodies
that have got regeneration money.
Q289 Mr Cummings: Do you not think it
necessary to introduce more guidance for the regional development
agencies?
Yvette Cooper: It might be something
that we should look further at. At the moment the concentration
has been on the training support with English Heritage because
that is about providing training for individual local authority
officers or people who have to make those decisions and are going
to be involving. It is providing training and expertise for them
in relation to the kinds of decisions they are going to need to
take and the opportunities there are. There is also great potential
for demonstrating to people what the benefits have been from other
areas; so the fact that other projects have been successful as
well. It is certainly something we would consider, and we would
be more interested in that kind of approach than the idea of ring-fencing
and saying "some of your RDA money ought to go on historic
buildings projects".
Q290 Mr Cummings: How much more research
are you going to require, Minister? We are told that independent
evaluations have been undertaken, and they reveal that heritage-led
regeneration schemes are very effective indeed; so how far do
you intend to carry further investigations?
Yvette Cooper: That is why I think
the issue is how much impact the training package working with
English Heritage can have, because that seems to me to be the
most productive area in terms of making progress—providing
greater skills and expertise for those involved in making the
decisions and those involved in the projects at the moment. We
are looking at what more can we do? At the moment, the fear is
that a lot of people, whether in planning departments or RDAs
do not have the skills and expertise in heritage issues, in historic
building regeneration and so on, to realise the potential in some
of these areas. If we can provide them with the right kind of
training and support packages, that might be the area of the greatest
potential gain in terms of making the most of some of these opportunities
in the future.
Q291 Chairman: Minister, we have heard
from the RTPI that some smaller authorities, which perhaps only
have a few historic buildings, struggle to justify and provide
the resources for having a heritage-led regeneration service.
Is there something you can do to encourage the RDAs to provide
something that they can buy into at a more local level?
Yvette Cooper: There is a problem
for small authorities, and it is something that can apply across
the board in any area where you need any kind of expertise or
specialism. It is why we were keen to support the Planning Development
Grant, which allows additional resources to support planning departments.
The evidence so far is that some of the Planning Development Grant
money is going on conservation-related projects and issues, and
getting that sort of expertise. There are opportunities, as you
say, to explore some of the regional agendas here. The more that
we strengthen the regional planning process the more that we may
be able to look at support for local areas; so the strengthening
of the regional planning process may be an opportunity there.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: Chairman,
may I complete the picture by saying something about the funding
of the heritage bodies that we sponsor, in particular English
Heritage, which Yvette has already referred to. That has a heritage
economic regeneration scheme. If I take the last financial year,
2002-03, that provided matched funding of £9.8 million in
170 schemes; so you can see that a lot of this is on smaller schemes,
and presumably quite a lot of them for smaller local authorities.
In addition, the Heritage Lottery Fund has the Townscape Heritage
Initiative, which is £18 million a year, and a lot of that
goes in smaller schemes. Some of these schemes themselves generate
private money as well. If you take Graingertown in Newcastle,
for example, it was £40 million from public sources, but
it generated £80 million of private money. I think that these
are worthwhile contributions.
Q292 Mr Clelland: Private developers
of course have got particular problems in dealing with conservation
sites, have they not? They have pointed out to the Committee the
difficulties they have in terms of the time, care and attention
involved in these sites, and in particular the requirement to
submit detailed planning proposals—planning permissions.
Is there going to be anything in the Planning & Compensation
Bill to reduce these burdens? It does not appear to address this
area at the moment.
Yvette Cooper: We have said that
in the whole Planning Bill process we want to get developers,
community stakeholders and so on, involved at the beginning of
the process rather than much later down the line, and that helps
with this because you get the debate at a much earlier stage.
You do not get the problem later on where a local authority is
dealing with a plan that is six or seven years out of date, or
where it does not have a plan at all and English Heritage only
gets involved at a late stage in the process, when there is a
whole lot of uncertainty, no-one knows which plan they are dealing
with and what the heritage issues will be at a late stage. It
makes life very difficult for the developer. Simply streamlining
the whole process, making it much quicker for local authorities
to update their plans which all of the stakeholders have been
involved in at an early stage, will itself bring benefits. We
are still looking at the issue about outline planning permission.
Keith Hill said in the statement on 15 December that we would
consider further the removal of the provision in the Planning
and Compulsory Bill that abolishes outline planning permission.
We are still looking at that. Obviously, we are going to have
to conclude that consideration very shortly because the Planning
Bill is going through the House of Lords at the moment.
Q293 Mr Clelland: Have you discussed
these ideas with private developers, and how do they react? Do
they feel you are on the right track?
Yvette Cooper: We have had a whole
series of discussions with private developers and all sorts of
stakeholders on a whole range of issues around the planning bill.
Some of the discussions about the outline planning permission
have been directly as a result of further representations and
discussions with private developers. Obviously, we have still
got to make final decisions on that, but certainly they have been
very closely involved in a series of discussions over quite some
time.
Q294 Sir Paul Beresford: In your opening
statement you referred to redevelopment and heritage buildings.
You mentioned a range of options, one of which at the bottom end—or
the top, however you like to approach it—was the use of
a bulldozer. Do you sometimes think a bulldozer is appropriate?
Yvette Cooper: In the end, that
has to be a local decision, as to what the issues are, what the
historic building is and its significance. The PPG 15 has always
been about recognising the need to conserve our historic legacy,
and that his hugely important. It is possible, for example, in
a conservation area, that an unlisted building that has no particular
contribution to the area could be demolished within a conservation
area if the alternative is acceptable. It is possible for local
areas to make those kinds of decisions, but in the end it is for
that local area.
Q295 Sir Paul Beresford: Can I give you
a small example? Many years ago I remember looking at Coventry,
where there was a 50s/60s shopping area with flats on the top
storey, and in the middle of it was this toadstool that used to
have a 50s/60s ice cream parlour on it. It was an absolute monster
and abomination. It was completely in the way of regeneration,
but it had been listed and no-one seemed to be able to move it.
I suspect the reason it was listed was that no-one would every
build one like it because it was a fool's mistake in the first
place, and it was listed because it was unique. I believe that
the thing is still there and it should have been bulldozed. In
addition to that, the fretwork around the first floor was listed,
which basically meant that you could not do anything much with
the building itself because of that. A little bit more flexibility
from Lord McIntosh might be helpful.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: I think
there is some help on the way—the US Cavalry riding over
the horizon in the heritage protection review, in the sense that
in addition to rationalising the listing procedure in itself and
merging it with the scheduling procedure, it will be possible
to look at larger sites and not just to individual buildings.
That is useful, for example, for a university campus. Secondly,
we want to be a lot more transparent than we have in the past,
and we will be looking to having management agreements with the
owners, with the people responsible for listed buildings, which
will indicate to them in advance, not just waiting for an application,
what things are possible to be done with a listed building and
what things are not.
Q296 Sir Paul Beresford: English Heritage
list, but they do not seem to review all of the buildings they
have got listed.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: It
would be a mammoth task.
Q297 Sir Paul Beresford: Perhaps they
should do it, even so. Perhaps they have got 115 examples of fretwork
of something or other from the 1960s—
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: If
I could be sure of getting money from the Treasury for that, yes.
Seriously, it would be also a devotion of resources I think. I
am not sure that even if I could get the money I would recommend
it.
Q298 Sir Paul Beresford: If the people
doing the Phoenix development had come to your department and
said, "we think this is a monstrosity; it ought to come down"
and there were 327 examples of fretwork throughout the country,
should there not be a reviewing attitude at least?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: That
is already possible. It does happen.
Q299 Sir Paul Beresford: How long does
it take, though?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: It
does not need to take a very long time. There is no reason why,
when an application is made, English Heritage should not respond
to it. In the kind of case you are talking about, 20th century
buildings, the Commission on Architecture and the Built Environment
will have a view. I, myself, have refused to continue the listing
of a building simply because in my view it did not work.
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