Memorandum submitted by the Victorian
Society
INTRODUCTION
1. The Victorian Society was founded in 1958
to study and to champion the architecture of the Victorian and
Edwardian periods.
2. The Victorian Society is a member of the
Joint Committee of the National Amenity Societies and has contributed
to their evidence. We are also a member of Heritage Link. To avoid
duplication of our responses, in this submission we comment only
on areas where we wish to make additional points.
EVIDENCE
3. Priorities in the forthcoming Heritage
White Paper
3.1 Ecclesiastical Exemption: Peculiars and
other special cases
3.1.1 The following paragraphs apply to
Church of England "Peculiars" (buildings outside the
faculty jurisdiction system) and other special cases including
Church of England and Roman Catholic religious communities; and
school and other institutional chapels. While some of these institutions
have opted for normal local authority control or that of the exempted
denomination, others have no system of external involvement and
are completely outside the system of heritage protection.
3.1.2 Planning Policy Guidance 15: Planning
and the Historic Environment (Paragraph 8.9) stated the intention
that "by the end of a limited period all buildings within
these categories will either become subject to the normal local
authority controls or be included within the scope of an exempted
denomination's internal system of control. The bodies concerned
have been notified of the order and invited to consider what future
arrangements would be appropriate for them."
3.1.3 Within the Church of England, under
the Care of Places of Worship Measure 1999, all "peculiars"
were asked if they wanted to operate under the exemption or under
the appropriate secular system of control. However, no deadline
for making the decision was set. This is an unsatisfactory situation.
3.1.4 Peculiars and special cases must be
made to decide whether they wish to remain under the exemption
by a specific date. If they cannot decide we feel they should
be placed automatically under the secular system of control.
3.2 Designation decisions
3.2.1 Delays in the present operation. As
the Joint Committee of the National Amenity Societies pointed
out, there can be long delays in dealing with requests to list
buildings. It is not always clear to us whether English Heritage,
the DCMS, or both, are at fault, but excessive time taken to reach
a decision is a great source of annoyance to us and to owners.
3.2.2 Here are some listing requests that
are still undetermined, with the month they were submitted:
April 2002: Alderman Newton's Church of England
School, Peacock Lane, Leicester.
January 2004: Ten bridges over River Soar; Irish
Bank (formerly Leicester Savings Bank), Greyfriars, Leicester.
August 2004: Robert Hall Memorial Baptist Church,
Narborough Road, Leicester.
November 2004: Stanbrook Abbey, Worcestershire
(upgrading and new listing).
December 2004: Beaufoy Institute, Lambeth (upgrading);
Nook Public House, Griffiths Street, Liverpool.
March 2005: Barrow Brothers Building, Belvoir
Street, Leicester.
July 2005: Pugin Hall, Rampisham, Dorset (upgrading)
and Arkwright Building, Nottingham Trent University, Shakespeare
Street, Nottingham.
3.2.3 Such long delays create uncertainty
for the owner for an unreasonable amount of time, and also for
us. We hope that English Heritage will be adequately resourced
to carry out its designation function.
January 2006
|
