Adjournment debate - The Process of Listing Buildings

Tuesday, July 15 2008

I want to start by welcoming the Draft Heritage Protection Bill.

The Bill aims to set out the legislative framework for a more unified and simpler heritage protection system that will be more open, accountable and transparent.

I am pleased that the Bill has been designed to provide more opportunities for public involvement and community engagement in understanding, preserving and managing our heritage.

These are laudable aims. The benefits of the reforms, as set out in the Bill, are that they enable us to preserve the historic environment and to manage its transition to the future,

My main concern tonight is to ensure that when it comes to protecting buildings that there is a balance between the past and the future. We must not let our desire to cherish and protect the past jeopardise building for future generations.

I believe there should be more consideration given to wider economic and regeneration issues in the listing or designating of buildings.

At the moment the criteria to which English Heritage has regard in determining whether to recommend to the Department of Culture, Media and Sport, to list a building, are the architectural and historic value of the building.

The majority of listings are carried out in response to applications for individual buildings, which can be made by any one individual or organisation. In addition to the listing work that is undertaken in response to applications, English Heritage also undertakes some thematic reviews of particular types of building.

For example, in the 1990s the textile mills of Greater Manchester were looked at in this way and about five years ago cinemas across the whole of England were examined as a whole.

The Draft Heritage Bill will simplify things by creating a single system for designation – to be called the Heritage Register – which will replace listing, scheduling and registering. However, the decision to designate will still be made on the basis of special architectural historic or archaeological interest.

During the consideration of this draft legislation, I would like to see a debate about other subsidiary criteria, such as economic regeneration plans, being taken into consideration before a recommendation is made to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport for a building to be designated or listed.

Recent frustrating experiences in my own constituency of Stockport have led me to this view. Can I make it clear that I am not making any criticisms of individuals involved and I would like to thank Henry Owen-Jones from English Heritage for his help. The criticisms which follow are of the system itself.

These experiences have also made me believe that the designating of buildings should be more specific in terms of spelling out exactly what should be retained in any future developments.

For example, clear descriptions of the materials to be used would enable future developers to tie down and contain costs and know from the beginning exactly what is required of them and how much it will cost.

This would prevent expensive proposals from emerging at a later stage, often during informal pre-application discussions with English Heritage. This can severely hold up building projects or indeed jeopardise them altogether.

As I have indicated, my interest in this whole issue arose out of tensions between heritage and regeneration in a multi-million pound development of StockportCollege’s town centre campus in respect to one particular building. The new campus is to be on the site of the old St. Thomas’s hospital, whose buildings have fallen into disrepair since the hospital was closed.

The building in question - called merely building 25 - was NOT a listed building but because it fell within the curtaillage of the principal listed structure it was regarded as listed. It was attached to a listed building.

The problem was that English Heritage wanted to keep building 25. But Stockport College did not want to keep it as they did not think it had any value in their vision of a 21^st century educational facility and that retention of it would compromise the design of the front aspect of their new college campus.

As the building was riddled with asbestos the restoration of it would add further expense to the project. The college was already in the position of having spent £11.217 million on the refurbishment of listed buildings as a result of pre-planning meetings with English Heritage.

As the refurbishment of listing buildings is 16 per cent higher than the cost of new build, the excess costs were £1.53 million.

The college did not want building 25 and the proposed alternatives of boarding it up or selling it were not ones the college considered to be viable.

The college recognised the historical significance of the two listed buildings but felt that building 25 detracted from the overall scheme. The frustration for the college was that they were always trying to discuss matters against a background of historical significance, irrespective of cost to their budget or the need to cater for 21^st century learners.

The College was keeping the best of the site from a heritage point of view, spending a lot of money on buildings that had hitherto been left to decay with little or no interest from anyone for years and were also bringing a £55 million regeneration scheme to Stockport. They simply could not go on investing in buildings for which they had no use and which they felt would serve no educational purposes.

English Heritage first advised Stockport Council that it wanted to keep building 25 during pre–application advice meetings. Argument about this went on for months.

The College spent £145,032 preparing a case for demolition, employing specialists in this field and commissioning architectural surveys to respond to English Heritage’s aspirations for the site as a whole.

The College purchased the site in March and the estimated delay, due to the involvement of English Heritage is likely to be 12 months.

The whole affair has had other costs to the project - including £37,500 in staff time and £117,000 in interest costs. It also had a major consequence on the College’s cash flow as it delayed the Learning Skills Council approval and subsequent grant by almost a year.

Ironically, in the end, English Heritage did not formally object to the planning application submitted by the College, which involved the demolition of Building 25.

From my involvement in this, which included several meetings with English Heritage and the government office in the North West and council officers, became clear to me that if a building is listed but alongside that listing there is no description of the work that has to be done to preserve the heritage aspects of the building then developers cannot possibly know the costs they might incur and even worse these costs will only become clear from advice given at a local level by either local conservation officers from the council or the local representative form English Heritage.

They, of course, will be concerned to improve the heritage aspects but then it is not their budget - every helpful piece of advice usually costs somebody else money. The other difficulty is that of course it is not often clear to the recipient of the advice from English Heritage the status of that advice. It was clear to me from my involvement that the college were certainly under the impression that English Heritage were able to exercise some kind of veto on the planning application if their advice was not accepted.

This of course was not the case. But I think there is a need for a much more transparent process in arriving at a balance between heritage and the need to make buildings fit for the purpose for which they are being developed.

If, when buildings were listed their listing was accompanied by descriptions of features which had to be retained together with acceptable materials for restoration, developers would have a clearer idea of the costs.

Also there needs to be, in arriving at such descriptions, some regard for the future use for the building. For example it is important that we provide affordable housing but if old buildings are to be converted to flats then every extra cost imposed to meet heritage standards affect the affordability of the housing.

I do understand the value of heritage but I think it is also important to make buildings fit for purpose in the coming century.

I think that we have to have an approach to heritage and the listing of buildings that understands that.

I was concerned that investment intended for further education and other public services was being disproportionately spent on buildings which had no national significance although they had local listings and indeed on buildings which are not themselves listed but are attached to listed buildings.

I do not think it is right that money intended for educating young people is spent on heritage and I think there is a case to be made for having separate heritage budgets which can support such restoration work.

I am also convinced of the need for such a separate budget by another example in my constituency which involves the derelict St George’sChurch of England vicarage and the St George’s C of E primary school, which are both grade two listed buildings.

The Victorian vicarage is set in a large garden. The vicarage has been disused since 2001 and is boarded up because it has major disrepair and structural problems, for example there is no staircase anymore. Groups of children are trespassing and lighting fires inside – at a danger both to themselves and the surrounding area and a cause of continual complaints to the local police.

The school and the church diocese want to demolish the vicarage to make space for a much needed green playing field. At the moment the pupils just have a concrete playground.

However, the conservation officer at Stockport Council has told the church vicar that they can’t brick up the vicarage windows or doors or demolish it because it is part of a conservation area and English Heritage would object.So they are stuck with a derelict, rotting building nobody wants or can use or indeed, properly conserve.

Again this is an example of advice being given at an informal level. The consequences of that advice can be far reaching. Of course, the Church could put in a planning application that involves the demolition of the vicarage. However it is not clear to me that people understand that this is an option for them. There is a sense, however unreal, that English Heritage has an automatic veto.

Meanwhile, the school building itself is in need of some repairs. For example, recently the roof tiles needed to be replaced. The school governors were told they had to use a specific quality and colour of slate tiles, which as it turned out could only be tiles accessed from Vermont in the United States – at great expense.

Again, on what basis is this advice given, where is it said that only these particular tiles can be used. Why should this school use money intended for education on expensive tiles in a position nobody can see, because the building is listed. Surely when listed buildings are being used there needs to be clear agreements about how the building is to be maintained which is more transparent than advice and which takes into account the affordability for the user.

These sorts of extra hidden costs can come as a shock and can jeopardise finances and in some cases the continuance of some projects.

The lessons learned from the examples of StockportCollege and St George’s are threefold:

That the criteria for listing buildings should be widened and that more consideration should be given to wider economic and regeneration issues in the listing or designating of buildings. This is particularly important in inner city and town centre developments.

That if buildings are listed - the listings should specify exactly what features would be expected to be retained by any future developers together with descriptions of acceptable materials to be used.

Thirdly, that there should be a separate heritage budget to support such restoration work so that, for example, money that is intended for educating young people is not diverted away.

English Heritage have a statutory obligation to give advice, but with ever more complex applications involving millions of pounds of investment, we need to look again at the process of listing and the balance between heritage and developments fit for purpose and how those decisions are made.

The right balance has to be struck between the future and the past. Many honourable members will have examples of derelict boarded up buildings in their own constituencies, which have stood vacant for years and which no-one can afford to renovate. They are not being conserved at all but just being allowed to decay.

Is it not ironic that the listing itself may be a deterrent to development and lead to the decay and eventual demolition of a building so significant it was listed for preservation.

But unless in the application for listing some account is taken of the possible future use of the building I cannot see how this bill in its present form is actually going to achieve its objectives of preserving our heritage.

Buildings stand not in the past but in the present. They carry the heritage of the past but they will not survive unless they can meet the aspirations of the future. Not all can become museums - perfectly reconstructed - they have to be schools and houses and new offices.

The process of listing buildings should take account of this both in the application and when listed.