House of Commons - Culture, Media and Sport

Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport Eleventh Report

4 Heritage Partnership Agreements

29. Clauses 157-160 of the draft Bill provide a statutory framework for a new system of management agreements for owners of large estates or complex sites. These arrangements, which would be agreed by all interested parties involved in the management of a particular site, such as owners, local authorities and amenity societies, and which would be approved by English Heritage, would be known as Heritage Partnership Agreements (HPAs). HPAs would give an owner permission to carry out certain types of work on the site (usually repetitive and/or small-scale works) without needing to apply for specific consent for each individual piece of work. DCMS hopes that HPAs will remove the necessity for repetitive consent applications for similar works, "reducing bureaucratic and administrative burdens for owners and local authorities, and providing certainty on the long-term management of the site".[56]

30. In 2004-05, English Heritage undertook 24 HPA pilot schemes in order to assess the effectiveness of the proposal. However, English Heritage told us that "as some of them started it became apparent quite quickly that they either were not going to work or they were not going to be saving any time or money".[57] Only nine of these pilots were ever completed.[58] Nonetheless, the University of East Anglia, which introduced a HPA pilot scheme in 2004, told us that the HPA pilot had led to "an enormous saving in resources, time and cost for all three stakeholders—UEA, the local planning authority and English Heritage".[59] It estimated that the HPA had cost £70,000 to set up, but had already saved the University about £250,000 in statutory and professional fees, because works compliant with the HPA have been implemented without Listed Building Consent.[60]

31. It is therefore no surprise that the UEA believes there is scope for the application of HPAs elsewhere. The concept is also supported by participants in some of the other pilot projects, such as Rochester Cathedral, London Underground, Cornwall County Council and British Waterways.[61] However, the UEA was also keen to stress that HPAs should not be considered universally applicable. It pointed out that there is a big investment required to set up a HPA, and the long-term benefits will not always outweigh this initial expenditure.[62] English Heritage agreed, cautioning that HPAs are only really useful where you are dealing with large estates where you have a single owner with multiple buildings.[63] Westminster City Council notes that this definition may include many of the urban estates in Central London, which comprise large numbers of historic buildings. It is concerned that "there could be considerable demand for HPAs from a significant number of property owners [that] would involve considerable local planning authority resources, especially at the initial stages".[64] It requested that local authorities should have the option to refuse applications for HPAs.[65] In response the Chief Executive of English Heritage pointed out that "a HPA can only be put in place with the agreement of the local authority".[66]

32. The Impact Assessment published alongside the draft Bill states that it hopes the take-up of HPAs will be high among owners of sites that require repetitive applications each year. However, it also notes that only 250 listed building sites out of 500,000 in England have made six or more consent applications in the last three years.[67] Indeed, Westminster City Council indicated that in the case of Piccadilly Circus underground station (another of the HPA pilots), fewer than 50 listed building consent applications had been received in the last 24 years. This, it claimed, had not been an onerous burden. It therefore questioned DCMS's suggestion that a rate of two applications per year would justify the work required in setting up a HPA.[68]

33. The Impact Assessment makes a projection of the costs and savings of HPAs. The predicted initial cost to introduce a HPA of £571,391 is countered by annual savings of £327,424.[69] However, this projection is based on the findings of a single pilot scheme, for Cornish bridges. The Impact Assessment gives no justification of why the Cornwall pilot was chosen for this calculation and not the other pilot HPAs, other than that it provided "robust data in its evaluation".[70] In fact, alongside the UEA and London Underground pilot schemes, the Cornwall HPA is considered the most successful.[71] There are therefore justifiable concerns that the savings demonstrated in Cornwall (and the UEA) may not be repeated elsewhere.[72]

34. We recognise that Heritage Partnership Agreements (HPAs) have, in a limited number of cases, offered significant cost savings. However, we are not convinced that a robust business case for the widespread introduction of HPAs has yet been demonstrated. We therefore recommend that the number of HPAs is restricted until there is more consistent evidence to justify their wider implementation. We welcome the statement from English Heritage that HPAs may only be introduced with the agreement of the relevant local authority. Nevertheless, the Government will need to define very tightly the type of estates which may be considered for HPAs to ensure that inappropriate applications are not an unnecessary drain on local authority resources.

56 Impact Assessment: Draft Heritage Protection Bill, April 2008, page 19 Back

57 Q 87 Back

58 Q 87 Back

59 Ev 20 Back

60 Ibid. Back

61 Ev 64; Ev 67; Ev 90; Ev 137 Back

62 Q 24 Back

63 Q 91 Back

64 Ev 158 Back

65 Q 31 Back

66 Q 93 Back

67 Impact Assessment: Draft Heritage Protection Bill, April 2008, page 19 Back