Memorandum submitted by Manchester City
Council
INTRODUCTION
1. Manchester has placed Culture at the heart
of its regeneration strategy for many years and is increasingly
recognising the specific contribution that the historic environment
makes to a sense of place and as an economic driver to improve
the quality of life of its residents. Protection and promotion
of its heritage assets alongside quality new build development
make a significant contribution to the City's Cultural Strategy
as a key component of its Community Strategy.
The Council has enthusiastically embraced the
concept of Design and Heritage champions and has established an
excellent partnership with both English Heritage and the Heritage
Lottery Fund, particularly in finding innovative locally relevant
solutions to challenging listed or at risk buildings, Victoria
Baths being a classic example.
The development of new strategic partnerships
with Local Area Agreements
2. We expect and need all DCMS sponsored NDPBs
to respond flexibly and strategically to challenging development
opportunities. Specific ways in which this can be achieved via
Planning legislation is set out from paragraph 5 below. As part
of the emerging Local Area Agreement for Manchester, we are requiring
all our public sector delivery partners to align their strategic
objectives and ultimately funding streams to the 4 core blocks
determined by government. Manchester has further articulated its
vision via three delivery spines:
— Neighbourhoods of Choice;
— Individual and collective Self Esteem,
Mutual Respect;
— Reaching full potential in Education
and Employment.
We are increasingly recognising the role that
Culture, including Heritage, can play in all three of these areas,
particularly in achieving Community Cohesion for which we have
developed a unique local PSA II target.
3. Critical to the ultimate alignment of strategic
priorities for Culture in Manchester will be the development of
embryonic partnership agreements with the Arts Council North West,
English Heritage and the Heritage Lottery Fund leading ultimately
to locally prioritised funding regimes and ideally some common
funding pots. Agreeing local strategic priorities in partnership
and realising developments via common delivery and funding frameworks
alongside specific planning legislative changes will, we believe,
hasten the twin goals of conserving our Heritage and the uniqueness
of our cities identities and contributing to economic prosperity,
improvements to the built environment and sense of place.
Optimising Lottery involvement in Heritage
4. Manchester City Council has developed a fruitful,
positive partnership with the Heritage Lottery Fund since they
established a local office and Regional Director. We meet regularly
together with English Heritage, to determine local strategic priority
projects and increasingly work alongside case officers at the
development stage of projects.
The Balance Between Heritage And Development Needs
In Planning Policy
5. The planning and development agenda in
any major city is influenced by many factors. Two of the most
critical are the need to promote regeneration and change in order
to remain economically competitive and the need to cherish and
protect the built heritage. It is often assumed that these objectives
are mutually exclusive and that the progression of one will in
the majority of circumstances only succeed at the expense of the
other, ie heritage constrains regeneration or regeneration destroys
the built heritage.
6. The experience in Manchester over recent
years is that these can be seen as complementary objectives. They
can help to establish and sustain the development agenda the City
in a manner that can achieve a broad level of support. Manchester
takes great pride in and values its built heritage and at the
same time has become a major European city that achieves good
quality modern architecture through new development. Whilst Manchester
gets much credit for its ambitious and aggressive approach to
securing new investment, the City has also secured new uses for
many of its listed buildings and buildings in conservation areas.
Rather than older buildings being a constraint to new investment
they can provide many opportunities, especially in the City Centre.
7. The key to achieving this is the nature
of the relationship is established between English Heritage and
the local authority and the manner in which this is subsequently
communicated to the development industry. The creation of a shared
understanding between the organisations about defining the parameters
of the overall development agenda and the heritage context can
be established through close working relationships.
8. We have worked successfully with English
Heritage and Heritage Lottery Fund on a number of challenging
projects affecting listed buildings and conservation areas. A
healthy relationship has developed whereby we communicate openly
and from a very early stage about critical schemes. This type
of relationship is inevitably driven by individual rather than
by organisational relationships and is liable to change. The critical
issue then becomes one of consistency of advice throughout the
timescale within which a scheme comes forward. Through hard work
and a desire to succeed a successful relationship can be established.
9. We believe that regeneration and heritage
should be key components of the planning policy agenda for cities.
The success of this will depend to a great extent on the strength
of the relationship that exists between the local planning authority
and English Heritage and the establishment of a shared understanding
about the development agenda for the city.
The Role of English Heritage
10. English Heritage is widely appreciated
for its role in preserving the country's heritage. Some of the
issues that local planning authorities have to address are by
definition small scale, involving Grade II listed buildings, when
compared to others within the city and English Heritage's wider
obligations. These can often be difficult to deal with owing to
building owners unrealistic aspirations for the type or scale
of change put forward. Refusals of planning and listed building
consent applications lead to appeals and the local planning authority
must justify its position. Whilst the local planning authority
will be capable of putting forward a strong case, the support
of English Heritage can be very helpful in such circumstances
and especially meaningful for how they are perceived. If this
is done within the context of an agreed strategic framework this
is even more successful.
The Priority Placed On Conservation By Planning
Authorities—Buildings at Risk
11. Manchester has a rich and diverse built
heritage the quality of which is equal to many European cities.
Much of the City's historic fabric is well preserved and will
continue to be protected as many owners recognise the benefits
of historic buildings. As best practice it is recognised that
listed buildings should be retained in use but finding new uses
for buildings can sometimes be challenging. Clearly the use for
which the building was intended is always best, however as cities
evolve activities change and buildings can become underused or
unoccupied. Historic buildings can often be adapted to new uses
with sensitive change. Where such uses do not come forward buildings
can become more vulnerable and lead them to being "at risk".
12. Not all owners are willing or able to
maintain and enhance their historic buildings, and "hope
values" might sometimes be realised through deterioration
followed by demolition. Whatever the position, such neglected
buildings can often give negative perceptions for investment in
nearby properties and the wider area that can be counter productive
to regeneration and the sustainability of communities.
13. Manchester's historic environment, although
vast in architectural richness, has a substantial number of buildings
at risk. There are approximately 900 listed buildings within the
City Council Boundary, 740 have been surveyed to date (December
2005) and 10% are identified as being at risk. This is double
the national average (5%) of listed buildings at risk. Manchester
is one of few authorities nationally that has developed a partnership
with English Heritage specifically to address the issue of buildings
at risk. The City Council and English Heritage jointly fund a
Building At Risk Officer post and a Buildings At Risk Strategy
is being prepared.
14. Effective implementation depends, however,
on the ability to serve and enforce Urgent Works and Repairs Notices
(respectively sections 54 and 48 of the Planning Listed Buildings
& Conservation Areas Act 1990) where works cannot be secured
through negotiation. Unfortunately, Manchester is deterred from
incurring costs in carrying out works in default of compliance
with an Urgent Woks notice as the costs incurred are not treated
as a charge on the property pending recovery. In this respect
there is a surprising anomaly between the section 54 Notice and
other notices relating to the maintenance of land such as section
215 Notices under the 1990 Town & Country Planning Act and
notices in relation to dangerous buildings under sections 77-79
of the 1984 Building Act.
15. The ability to secure the costs of works
in default as a charge on the property, gives the Council confidence
that the costs incurred will be recovered from the landowner responsible
for the building. However, where court based debt recovery is
the only method of recovery the investment of further costs in
the form of legal costs, at risk to the Council in order to secure
recovery makes the procedure much less certain and therefore less
attractive. This is a serious impediment to taking a pro-active
approach to buildings at risk, and preserving our heritage.
The Priority Placed On Conservation By Planning
Authorities—Conservation Area Designation
16. The City Council has recently reviewed
its conservation area coverage following concerns raised by Members
and by local people and groups. Six new conservation areas were
subsequently designated and there remain some 30 areas that require
further investigation. Concerns largely relate to the fact that
conservation area status provides planning control over demolition
of properties and the potential to improve the quality of new
development, thus helping to maintain the character of older areas
and their sustainability. Resorting to conservation area status
for areas would not be necessary in all cases (especially those
that are more marginal in terms of making the case for their special
historic value) if demolition were subject to planning consent.[45]
Finally, in relation to the specific issues
affecting the museums and galleries sector, we would register
the following comments:
17. Continuation of Portable Antiquities Scheme
to encourage archaeological finds to be recorded by museums.
18. Continued and increased support for Renaissance
in the Regions and Designation Challenge Fund in the context of
the Museums Association's Collections for the Future recommendations,
given the non-statutory nature of museums services, the scale
of archaeological archives, and budget pressures on local authorities.
19. Safeguarding continued investment from Heritage
Lottery Fund on new uses for historic buildings and collections,
and maintaining standards already set through re-investment in
major projects on a 7-year cycle.
20. Strategic approach to developing the range
of the nation's heritage held in museums and galleries through
the support of acquisitions of historic and contemporary material
for collections, such as joint purchasing of objects, and a recognition
of the value of grant support schemes, particularly from the HLF,
and the value of the Acceptance in Lieu scheme and other schemes
which encourage gifting through tax incentives.
21. Through the Museums, Libraries and Archives
Council, encouraging responsible disposal of objects and, where
appropriate, dispersal to recognised centres of expertise.
22. Review of Government Indemnity requirements
to ensure consistency based on proven risk management methodology.
23. The role of the Museums, Libraries and Archives
Council in not only setting standards of collections management,
care and security, but also providing consistent advice and support
on implementing them.
24. In our experience, recruitment of Conservation
professionals in the museum sector of all kinds, both in studio
practice and in collections care and preventive conservation,
is difficult, with few candidates in all fields with relevant
experience.
25. The need for modern apprenticeships or traineeships
to train a wider range of people in a wider range of conservation
skills and approaches.
26. Better links between Universities and the
museums and heritage sector to sustain and improve scholarship
and research in collections and buildings research, interpretation
and conservation, and funding initiatives to deliver this, building
on the current AHRC scheme.
27. We welcome the new initiative between English
Heritage and War Memorials Trust to support conservation and maintenance
programmes.
We would be happy to expand on this response
in relation to specific matters raised via the appropriate Council
department.
19 January 2005
45 Demolition is theoretically subject to planning
control as it is now included within the definition of "development"
at S55 T and CPA 90 however it is then removed wholescale from
the need to apply for specific permission by a combination of
the 1995 demolition direction and Part 31 GPDO permitted development
rights, except in the case of residential property where there
remains a prior approval procedure which largely controls demolition
methods. Back
| 
