Memorandum submitted by Wiltshire Archaeological
and Natural History Society (WANHS) and Campaign to Protect Rural
England (CPRE) Wiltshire Branch
INTRODUCTION
WANHS: Registered Charity no. 1080096
and Company no. 38856490; 41 Long Street, Devizes, Wiltshire SN10
1NS.
WANHS is the County Society, with a current
membership of around 1,000.
The Society runs a Designated museum in Devizes
which is particularly important for its prehistoric collections,
notably from the World Heritage Site of Avebury and Stonehenge.
The Society has been active in the protection of the heritage
of Wiltshire since its foundation (1853). Its Buildings and Monuments
Committee monitors planning applications affecting Listed buildings
and archaeological sites and monuments in the county, acting as
agent for the Council for British Archaeology in commenting on
applications for Listed building demolitions. The Society has
taken part in planning enquiries into local and structure plans
in the county and into a series of planning proposals affecting
Avebury and Stonehenge. The Buildings and Monuments Committee
has helped to assemble this joint response to the Draft Bill.
CPRE Wiltshire Branch: Registered Charity
no. 211318; Lansdowne House, Long Street, Devizes, Wiltshire SN10
1NJ.
CPRE Wiltshire is the local branch of national
CPRE and promotes the beauty, tranquillity and diversity of rural
England by encouraging the sustainable use of land and other natural
resources in the towns and countryside of Wiltshire. CPRE works
closely with WANHS on heritage matters and, like WANHS, has for
many years been specifically involved in commenting on planning
documents and planning applications affecting Wiltshire and its
heritage. CPRE Wiltshire Branch has discussed this joint response
to the Draft Heritage Protection Bill in committee.
The contact for this response is Kate Fielden,
WANHS Trustee and Chairman of its Buildings and Monuments Committee;
and CPRE Wiltshire Branch Trustee and Executive Committee member.
1. GENERAL COMMENTS
ON THE
DRAFT BILL
1.1 We are pleased to see the draft Bill
and to have the opportunity to comment on it. We are particularly
glad to see proposals for unifying the designation of heritage
assets and the creation of Heritage and Historic Environment Registers.
We are also pleased to note that "sites of human activity
without structures" will be included within designated heritage
assets.
1.2 We do, however, have a number of concerns
about the Draft Bill, especially its incomplete state which makes
it impossible to comment fully on all areas. Information about,
for example, World Heritage Sites and Conservation Areas is confusing
and incomplete.
1.3 It is not clear how PPGs 15 and 16 are
to relate to the Bill, nor whether these crucial documents are
to be updated to a PPS at the same time as the Bill is to become
Law. We hope that a new PPS to cover the matters included within
PPGs 15 and 16 will be produced as soon as possible.
2. SPECIFIC QUESTIONS
Some more of our more pressing questions are listed,
below
2.1 We are concerned about the status of
our current heritage assets following passage of the Bill. At
the time the Bill is passed, what will be the status of current
Listed Buildings, Scheduled Ancient Monuments, Conservation Areas,
Areas of Special Archaeological Significance (in our view a most
important designation)), historic parks and gardens and battlefields,
and World Heritage Sites? Will Heritage Registers be drawn up
to include these items before the Bill becomes law?
2.2 Are Conservation Areas as separate entities
to be scrapped? We think that to eliminate them under this title,
even though they may be included in the Heritage Register and
re-named as heritage open spaces, would be a mistake. The term
"Conservation Area" is well understood by local communities;
it actually describes what should happen in such areas—where
people live and which they value and want to have protected as
a part of the local scene. The term "heritage open space"
invokes no immediate notion of conservation—simply recognition
of a valued asset.
2.3 What precisely are going to be Registered
Heritage Assets? More information is needed. What will be the
deciding factors in defining Registered Heritage Assets?
2.4 Will there be clear distinction between
Heritage Assets that will need EH's consent for works and those
that will require LPA consent only? [The Impact Assessment indicates
(para 9, bullet pt 3) that there will be a
"unified heritage consent scheme... to be administered
by local authorities"; while the Bill indicates that some
consents will be administered by the "appropriate national
authority" (eg, Clause 88 (1)(a)).)
3. SPECIFIC CONCERNS
3.1 Consultation
3.1.1 The Draft Bill provides for consultation
on various aspects of the management of Heritage Assets, including
nomination, designation, planning applications, appeals and enforcement.
It appears throughout the Draft Bill, however, that consultation
with or nominations from the general public and amenity societies,
when they are to take place, are to be limited to national amenity
societies. We do not agree with this limitation for the following
reasons:
(i) National amenity societies at present
may rely to a large extent upon the requirement for LPAs to notify
and consult local people and appropriate local amenity societies,
eg Civic Societies, in respect of planning applications etc. relating
to heritage assets.
(ii) Local amenity societies, with local
knowledge, are generally in a better position and better informed
to comment on proposals re heritage assets than national amenity
societies. To exclude the requirement to notify and consult such
bodies (and indeed the general public) would be to deny the voice
of local people whose local heritage assets are at stake.
(iii) The burden of consultation to be placed
on EH and national amenity societies alone would obviously be
too great, both in terms of finance and manpower.
(iv) There Bill would require a very considerable
additional burden to be placed upon LPAs in terms of finance and
manpower—in both of which there are severe shortages at
the present time.
(v) The minimum time limit for consultation
on various aspects of Heritage Asset management etc (28 days)
would be too short for satisfactory consultation with local amenity
societies via national amenity societies.
(In respect only of planning applications involving
demolition of Listed Buildings, the CBA currently consults its
local agents (in the case of Wiltshire, WANHS), and it is sometimes
the case that WANHS does not receive notification from the CBA
for more than a week after the consultation period has begun.)
(vi) If LPAs are not required to consult
with local amenity societies on proposals re heritage assets,
then these would also, all (apparently) have to be scrutinised
by national amenity societies alone or via their local agents,
creating an enormous additional burden on those societies and/or
their agents.
(vii) There is lack of absolute clarity re
the publicity requirements for proposals concerning heritage assets.
There should be an obligation to advertise and seek comments locally
re proposals/applications concerning local heritage assets, in
the interests of local people and of the heritage assets themselves.
There is already a tendency for cash-strapped
and under-staffed LPAs to "cut corners" and limit consultation
on planning applications affecting heritage assets to Parish Councils
only: this unsatisfactory state of affairs is likely to continue
unless the Bill requires wider local consultation.
3.1.2 The Impact Assessment says that there
will be "increased public involvement with and access to
the heritage protection system.. " (para 18). This appears,
however, to be increased access to HERs and not inclusion in nomination
of or consultation on works to Heritage Assets, where the participation
of the public ought not to be, in effect, denied.
Similarly, the Impact Assessment says (Annex
F, last para. of Section 2: Policy: `What individuals and organisations
are likely to have an interest in or likely to be affected by
the policy?'): "The scope of this policy covers heritage
organisations, local authorities, national amenity societies...
those involved in development and planning and members of the
public".
The Draft Bill, however, appears largely to
exclude the public from active participation in the heritage protection
process: we think this should be rectified.
3.2 Setting
Very little is said about the settings of heritage
assets, although the requirement to take them into consideration
is mentioned. We believe that Chapter 5 (The Heritage Registers
Supplementary), Clause 78, should require provision of a specification
or description of the setting of a Heritage Asset within the information
to be included in Heritage Registers. This would ensure clarity
in an area that is at present extremely muddled.
We suggest that Clause 106 (4)(a) should read:
"...must have special regard to the desirability
of preserving the registered heritage structure and [not `or']
its setting..."
Similarly, in Clause 115 (4)(e):
"or" should be exchanged for "and"
after "registered heritage structure" and before "its
setting".
3.3 World Heritage Sites
3.3.1 It is not made clear, in respect of
the Draft Heritage Bill, that cultural WHSites are to be distinguished
from WHSites designated for their natural heritage. Are the latter
to be dealt with under separate legislation?
3.3.2 In respect of cultural WHSs:
(i) There is no reference to information
to be included on Heritage Registers in respect of cultural WHSs
(see Clause 79).
(ii) There is no recognition of the possibility
that a Heritage Structure or Heritage Open Space may also be a
WHS.
(iii) In the section on Heritage Assets on
Land, Chapter 2, "Registrable Heritage Assets": Clauses
2 and 3, WHSites are not mentioned.
Nevertheless, WHSs are elsewhere considered to
be heritage assets (Clause 1(3)(c)); registrable heritage assets
(Clause 78 (2)); and registered heritage assets (Clause 210, subsection
(2)(a) and Clause 211, subsection (3)(a)). We think that these
anomalies should be rectified throughout the Bill. This might
be dealt with by specifically including WHSites as categories
of "Registrable Heritage Assets": "Heritage Structure"
and/or "Heritage Open Space" under the definitions in
Clauses 2 and 3 of the (draft) Bill, since these are the Clauses
where the range of assets capable of being considered for registration
are set out, and these are the Clauses which are referred to throughout
the Bill for definitions of "Heritage Structure" and
"Heritage Open Space".
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