Buildings at Risk: The Need for Collaboration
The English Heritage Buildings at Risk Register 2007 focused attention on the vast number of buildings that require remedial action and 400 million pounds needed to bring them into a reasonable state of repair or reuse.
This year's Register lists a disturbing 1,235 buildings, comprising Grade I and II listed buildings, as well as unlisted ancient monuments. But EH's figure omits the 80 percent of listed buildings outside London that are listed as Grade II and the approximately 400 Grade II listed buildings at risk in London. The real figure for buildings at risk across the country must therefore be much higher.
EH has highlighted the problems posed by a significant number of England's approximately half a million listed buildings. This is to be welcomed, but it also raises concerns about how we can best secure a future for such buildings at risk. According to EH's Register, only 42% of such properties have a beneficial use, which should be enough to justify their maintenance once repaired. Of these, 25% also are evaluated as being 'economical to repair', and in only 17% of cases is the owner 'all or part of the problem.'
For those of us working to unlock the potential for the realisable repair, adaptation and reuse of some of the less prestigious Grade II listed buildings at risk in London, it can be the local authorities themselves that pose one of the barriers to the effective rescuing of such properties. Authorities may also be owners of some of the most significant buildings at risk in their respective areas.
Through the inflexible application of adopted land-use, housing-mix and unit-size policies, some authorities are prejudicing the realisation of sound conservation solutions for buildings at risk. Despite the efforts of EH and other national and local bodies, effective urban conservation is still given too low of a priority in relation to other planning and development issues. While local planning authorities should not set aside sensible land-use policies and housing objectives, such policies and objectives should be applied with discretion, recognising the needs of effective conservation.
In some cases this inaction may then be exacerbated by the conservation advice provided from within the local authorities. This may be through the inflexible application of adopted policies or the influence of increasingly complex and 'archaeologically orientated' policy and guidance statements.
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Mr Toby Bath, Director
