CLA heritage policy: priorities and achievements

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Why we care about heritage

Almost all CLA members own heritage, listed/ scheduled or not.  Collectively, we manage and/or own a quarter to a third of all heritage in England and Wales (including far more than half of the million or so traditional farm buildings).  Looking after heritage is therefore a core activity for CLA members.  But it is often a core cost rather than a source of profit:  CLA members collectively are spending probably at least £1 billion a year on maintaining and managing heritage – vastly more of course than government. 

CLA heritage policy

Most people – and certainly most CLA members – think the heritage of England and Wales is important and should be looked after.  But looking after it is painfully expensive.  The state never has paid much of that cost, and never will. 

The survival of heritage depends (as always) on people being willing to own it and to spend money on it.  In most cases they can realistically only do that if it is economically viable and relevant to the future.  That in turn requires it to be allowed to be used and to change.  A heritage protection system is essential, but it must work effectively and proportionately and allow properly-managed change.  This is the essence of the CLA's heritage policy.  It is also commonsense.  But while many people sign up to this in principle, the CLA is the only organisation actively lobbying on a day-to-day basis for this to happen.

Heritage protection is not working

In practice, much of the time, this is not happening.  The system is complex, and it assumes that any change to heritage is potentially damaging and needs to be scrutinised by experts.  This might be fine in theory, but in practice, in the under-resourced local authorities which take nearly all the decisions, those experts just aren’t there, and cuts are making this rapidly worse.  Owners are usually dealing with general development management staff who know little about heritage and are hugely overworked.  The result is local authorities saying “no”, uncertainty, inconsistency, delays, and high costs, and – because of a widespread perception that getting consent is impossible – both the abandonment of projects which would have given historic buildings a better future, and an apparent epidemic of unauthorised work. 

The system is not working and needs substantial but constructive change.

CLA achievements in heritage and planning

We have of course not solved all these problems, yet.  But as by far the largest owner ‘stakeholder group’, the CLA is taking a very proactive role in this debate:

• We work constructively with English Heritage (EH) and Cadw, are formally represented on the main national heritage bodies, and actively work with many heritage organisations, particularly with the Heritage Alliance.  The CLA's Heritage Adviser co-chairs the Heritage Alliance's rural advocacy group, and sits on the Historic Environment Forum, the Heritage Alliance's planning advocacy group, and the Heritage Gateway Advisory Committee, among others.
• We are, working closely with the Historic Houses Association and the British Property Federation and others, gradually persuading EH, Cadw, and Government to consult owners of heritage (routine consultation of owners, surprisingly, still seems to be seen as a radical idea).
• We are gradually changing the debate’s ‘terms of trade’.  Most people now accept – at least in theory – that heritage protection is not about ‘preserving' everything 'in aspic’.  EH in particular has adopted a “Constructive Conservation” policy which is about “managing change, not just saying “no” to change”, though it is as yet not always applied in practice.
• We have suggested many beneficial changes to detailed EH policy (for example on traditional farm buildings, where EH has radically changed its position and actively advocates sympathetic conversion to new uses, including residential).
• With others we successfully lobbied the Government to publish a new Planning Policy Statement (PPS 5) for heritage in March 2010.  After much CLA lobbying on the details over more than a year, this focuses on Constructive Conservation, ie helps to put into effect the CLA's heritage policy, and is more proportionate and effective than the previous policies set out in the now-cancelled PPG 15 and 16.
• We persuaded the Department for Communities and Local Government to take a much more positive line on the conversion of rural and historic buildings in the new 2009 PPS 4 on economic development.
• We have influenced the Select Committee for Culture Media and Sport whose 2008 report on the (now-postponed) Heritage Protection Bill quotes CLA arguments extensively.
• We have made real progress on better regulation in the planning and heritage protection systems, especially working with the Better Regulation Executive (for example 20 CLA members outlined the problems on the ground in detail at a useful meeting in early 2008).  This helped to prompt the 2008 Killian Pretty Review on simplifying the planning application process;  the Government is implementing many of its recommendations, particularly streamlining the information required from planning and listed building consent applicants.
• We have been heavily involved in the Penfold Review of non-planning obstacles to development and change, sitting on its Sounding Board.  Its Final Report in July 2010 recommended substantial changes to listed building consent which would, if implemented, focus scarce resources much more effectively. The Government has accepted the Report and we remain involved in seeing its recommendations - not least on heritage - implemented.
• With the RTPI and others, we defeated Government proposals in the Planning Bill 2008 to abolish the right of appeal for most listed building consent and planning applications.
• With others we persuaded the Government not to impose empty business rates on listed buildings.
• With the Cut-the-VAT Coalition and the European Landowners’ Organisation, we have secured the ability for EU member states to reduce VAT rates on works to domestic property (including heritage), though the battle to get this implemented in the UK is far from won.
• Lobbying for effective, pragmatic, and proportionate heritage protection in Wales, we have secured improvements to the Wales Assembly Government statement on the historic environment which initially seemed to see owners of heritage as a problem, rather than the solution, and begins to set out a Constructive Conservation policy for Wales.
• Securing, after a long period of lobbying, new sensible English Heritage guidance on marquees and other temporary structures near heritage, consent for which has been almost impossible to obtain.
• Within the CLA, we have a helpful Heritage Working Group of members with an interest in heritage, and this CLA heritage website which includes updated news on all these issues and Frequently Asked Questions.

Current priorities:

There is much more to do.  Current key initiatives include:

• Lobbying to ensure that the new National Planning Policy Framework takes forward the much better system set out in PPS5 (see above).
• Persuading the Government to implement the heritage recommendations of the Penfold Review on the ground.
• Lobbying English Heritage (EH) to ensure that its forthcoming National Heritage Protection Plan and new five-year strategy are founded on Constructive Conservation, and include substantive solutions to the very real problems in the heritage consent system.
• Detailed scrutiny of large amounts of forthcoming EH guidance (for example on listing, settings, community planning, and parks and gardens) to ensure that it too is effective, efficient, proportionate, and helpful.
• Continued lobbying for the EU-permitted lower VAT rate on works to domestic buildings and heritage to be applied in the UK by the UK Government, a problem exascerbated by the rise in the standard rate to 20 per cent in January 2011.
• Lobbying to secure proper guidance on 'local listing' of heritage by local authorities (which at the moment happens in a sometimes haphazard and disproportionate way without any guidance).

Feedback from CLA members is extremely helpful and welcome on these and other heritage issues.  Please contact:

Jonathan Thompson
Heritage Adviser
Country Land & Business Association
jonathan.thompson@cla.org.uk 

This page last updated February 2011

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