Memorandum submitted by the Joint Committee
of the National Amenity Societies
INTRODUCTION
1. The Joint Committee of the National Amenity
Societies was founded in 1972 to coordinate strategic action,
particularly in matters of government policy, legislation and
taxation, between the national conservation organisations concerned
with the built environment. It meets six times a year.
2. The constituent members are:
2.1 The Society for the Protection of Ancient
Buildings founded in 1877 by William Morris and others, the first
conservation organization established in England. Concerned particularly
with buildings constructed before 1700 and the philosophy of repair.
2.2 The Council for British Archaeology founded
in 1944 is an educational charity working throughout the UK to
involve people in archaeology and to promote appreciation and
care of the historic environment for the benefit of present and
future generations.
2.3 The Ancient Monuments Society, which
dates from 1924 and is concerned with historic buildings of all
ages and all types. It is in a working partnership with the Friends
of Friendless Churches which owns 38 disused but architecturally
important places of worship.
2.4 The Georgian Group founded in 1937 to
study and to champion buildings constructed between 1700 and 1837.
2.5 The Victorian Society, founded in 1958
to study and to champion the architecture of the Victorian and
Edwardian periods.
2.6 The Twentieth Century Society, founded
in 1979, to study and to champion architecture after 1914.
2.7 The Garden History Society, set up in
1965 to study and champion historic parks and gardens.
2.8 The Civic Trust, founded in 1957 for
the improvement and conservation of urban areas, historic and
non-historic. It was the Civic Trust which persuaded Parliament
to introduce the concept of the Conservation Area in 1967.
3. Our members may submit their separate
evidence to the Committee highlighting aspects of the bill relating
to their areas of expertise.
EVIDENCE
4. The overall aims and scope of the bill
4.1 The Joint Committee of the National
Amenity Societies welcomes the draft bill. We are pleased that
the bill recognizes that the concepts behind the current system
of heritage protection are sound, even if the administrative arrangements
require streamlining. We understand that a fundamental principle
behind the drafting of the bill is that that the levels of protection
currently enjoyed by the nation's "heritage assets"
are not to be reduced, and we strongly endorse this approach.
4.2 We are pleased to see, at long last,
that the bill will reverse the impact of the Shimizu judgment
on demolition within conservation areas, as it will reverse the
effect of the South Lakeland judgment and so require a local planning
authority to seek benefits for a conservation area.
4.3 Much of the success of the new regime
will depend on supplementary guidance which has not yet been drafted,
and which should be published alongside the new legislation. This
should include revisions to PPG 15 and PPG 16, as well as new
circulars.
4.4 Language. We regret the loss of familiar
terminology which is widely understood by the public and the introduction
of alien new terms; "registrable heritage assets" and
"heritage asset consent", for example, are particularly
unfortunate. However the legal language of the bill need not be
the public language of the future, and we hope that the policies
and guidance which are yet to come will choose more engaging terminology.
4.5 Local designation. We would have liked
to have seen a statutory duty for local authorities to develop
and maintain local lists of heritage assets. This would be a vital
part of protecting the heritage that is valued by local people
and which gives places their particular character, but which does
not meet the high level of significance required for national
designation.
4.6 Specific recognition of the role of
the national amenity societies. We welcome being named in the
bill as consultees during the designation process (Section 9(3)(d)).
However, the bill does not specifically name us as one of the
bodies to be invited to make representations in Section 103(2)
Procedure for dealing with applications. Our present statutory
role within the system is to advise on applications which include
the demolition of a designated structure, and so it does seem
odd not to be explicitly mentioned in this context.
5. The estimates of costs and benefits set
out in the Impact Assessment published alongside the draft Bill
5.1 Impact on the national amenity societies
5.1.1 National amenity societies pick up
a number of new roles in the revised system, in particular much
greater involvement in designation: we are to be consulted about
the proposed inclusion, removal or amendment of register entries.
The Impact Assessment states that "while [amenity societies]
will be statutory consultees, they are not statutorily obliged
to respond so are therefore free to fulfil this role in the light
of their resources and priorities". (page 10, paragraph 14).
It is surprising that we were not consulted about this assessment.
We have not been told how many such notifications we may expect
to receive. But even filtering them to determine those to which
we may wish to respond will be a significant administrative task.
5.1.2 We welcome the new arrangement that
national amenity societies will be invited to provide advice on
designations, as we believe very strongly that we can add value
to this process. But if consultation is to be anything more than
tokenistic, then the new system must also ensure that we are resourced
to do so. To assert that we need only contribute so far as our
resources allow is counter to the aim to create a more open system
which involves the public in decisions about their heritage.
5.1.3 In addition, we will also become involved
in Heritage Partnership Agreements and Certificates of No Intention
to Register. The former, if the pilots are anything to go by,
are time-consuming to set up and being part of the consultation
process will be resource intensive. No acknowledgement has been
made of this.
5.1.4 Particularly during the transitional
period, the national amenity societies will face increased demand
from the general public for advice about the new system and how
it operates. This is a service we already provide informally for
the present system, and it does take up a lot of our time. Many
members of the public tell us that they find it easier to engage
with the amenity societies than with other institutions, so we
expect this work to expand.
6. The staffing and skill levels needed for
effective implementation of the provisions in the draft Bill
6.1 Designation
6.1.1 One of the benefits of the new system
are the enhanced register entries, but these will be in place
only for new designations. There is no provision for wholesale
revision of existing designations or a new national re-survey,
so the actual benefit of the new arrangements is likely to be
limited unless resources are allocated to make good this deficiency.
6.1.2 It is likely that demand for revisions
to individual existing designations will arise as heritage asset
consent is applied for. This could result in substantial additional
work for the English Heritage designation team. Inability to provide
new designations in a timely manner will discredit the system.
6.1.3 The White Paper signaled that strategic
or thematic designation is to take precedence over spot-listing.
We hope that this will not be the case: spot-listing requests
often follow from development pressures which may raise the threat
of destruction of irreplaceable heritage assets. Spot listing
is a necessary remedy to the inadequacy of the present lists,
many of which are incomplete or hopelessly out of date. The only
alternative would be a national re-survey which would give greater
comfort to owners and developers that any special interest in
their property had been identified but even then it is unlikely
that the need for spot-listing would disappear.
6.1.4 Spot-listing provides the only way
in which the designation system is directly responsive to the
needs of the public: to be told that a particular building will
not be considered for designation because English Heritage is
busy on a thematic study of, say, cold war heritage is unlikely
to convince an interested person that the system places any value
on their input at all.
6.1.5 To build in a lack of responsiveness
to public demand would be extremely unfortunate, and so English
Heritage needs to be resourced to be able to provide "on-demand"
designations alongside thematic programmes.
6.2 Heritage Partnership Agreements
6.3 We are concerned that the impact of
HPAs on English Heritage and local authorities may have been underestimated.
As pilots, at least, these have been very time-consuming to negotiate.
If they are taken up widely the impact on LPAs and EH will be
substantial.
June 2008
| 
