HERITAGE REFORM

JONATHAN THOMPSON CLA SENIOR HERITAGE ADVISER

jonathan.thompson@cla.org.uk 020 7460 7942

HERITAGE

Analysing the progress that has been made in the fi eld of heritage reform, and the new advice on listed building consent

his year is the 10th

Tanniversary of the CLA’s heritage policy manifesto Averting crisis in heritage, which explained the cost and regulatory problems members face when looking after heritage, and included many case studies that were embarrassing for the heritage regulation system. While almost all members supported heritage protection in principle, many thought that, in practice, it put too many hurdles in the way of necessary change – and not enough in the way of bad change.

The new post-NPPF system

Of course, Averting crisis in heritage was not just a list of problems: it made careful recommendations. A decade – and much work – later, there has been substantial progress. Most important is the combination of the 2012 National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) and the 2014 Planning Practice Guidance (PPG), which for the fi rst time set out a sound national planning policy basis for heritage. Th is system is now founded on: ‘Conservation’ (explicitly defi ned as the careful management of change). Th is replaced the previous ‘presumption in favour of preservation’ ‘Signifi cance’ – in other words, what really matters. Th is replaced the assumption that everything (especially all ‘historic fabric’) must be ‘preserved’ Proportionality – focusing thinking on the key issues Viability, so that heritage is assumed to need fi nancially viable uses, including new uses. Th is replaced the presumption that the original use must be best Certainty, and more advice. Th is replaced the presumption that heritage was only a matter for public sector ‘experts’, and that publishing advice would be dangerous because it would fetter the discretion of those experts.

Advice

Th is NPPF approach is – on paper – a transformational change, and owners who follow it (helped by CLA guidance notes) should get consent. After further encouragement from the CLA and others, Historic England has fi lled some of the previously-gaping holes in advice by creating a series of advice notes, which sit below the NPPF and PPG

and cover issues such as farm building conversion, the setting of heritage, and conservation areas.

One of the most notorious advice gaps was on listed building consent (LBC). Although the current LBC system has been in place since 1968, there has always been an astonishing lack of substantive advice explaining it, and especially whether LBC is or is not required. Given the draconian penalties for getting this wrong, this was a serious problem for CLA members, who were at best unsure and at worst threatened with prosecution and/or enforcement after work that they did not think broke the law.

However, the damage was much worse than that: unnecessary uncertainty over the need for LBC loaded under-resourced local authorities with enquiries, which were diffi cult for them to answer – especially with the lack of advice. Local authorities’ claims that virtually any work required LBC created perceptions that the heritage protection system was both disproportionate and arbitrary. Above all, this discouraged change – change that is essential if listed buildings are to survive – as well as discouraging people from buying and owning listed buildings at all.

New Historic England advice on LBC

One of the key recommendations in the CLA’s heritage policy manifesto was for “new guidance […] which should indicate clearly where LBC is required”. In 2020, Historic England fi nally agreed to fi ll this gap, and this summer, after a public consultation (and eight iterations of CLA input), it published an advice note, Listed building consent.

Th is does, largely, indicate clearly where LBC is required. But fi rstly, and importantly, it now treats listed building owners and their advisers as intelligent and capable of making valid decisions, replacing the previous presumption that only local authority experts could know the answers, meaning it was essential either to make an LBC application or to consult the local authority.

Secondly, it sensibly focuses on the areas of doubt: a ‘full makeover’ of a listed building would affect ‘special interest’, triggering the need for LBC, while changing a Yale lock would not. Many of the works carried out by members, however, were in apparently grey areas: when do you need LBC to repaint your house or refi t your kitchen, and when do you not? Th e advice now includes a long and detailed table of the kinds of works that real owners might want to carry out.

Th irdly, that table of potential works usually begins with the assumption that LBC is not required and then lists mostly-sensible exceptions in which it is. For example, it says you do not need LBC to repaint - unless you want to paint on top of interesting fi nishes or previouslyundecorated surfaces, or use a clearly inappropriate colour or a non-breathable paint.

More to do

Th is new advice (used alongside CLA guidance notes) should give members the answers in most cases and reduce the scope for local authorities to claim LBC is required when it is not. However, it is not perfect, and several serious advice gaps remain – especially, for example, on what listing covers, and on heritage at risk. Moreover, no advice can by itself solve the fundamental problem: that the whole system assumes a much higher level of heritage staffi ng in local authorities than will ever exist in practice. Th e CLA is working on a further programme of reform, developed with heritage organisations under the Historic Environment Forum. Th e government promised reform in its 2020 planning white paper, but the work of Averting crisis in heritage is defi nitely not fi nished yet.

Members are advised to utilise the CLA’s heritage guidance notes for England and Wales, written explicitly for owners, especially Listed Buildings – when do I need consent?

These can be found on the CLA’s website in the advice section. Scroll down and use the fi lter ‘heritage’. They contain links to Historic England and other advice.