From: “Mike Heyworth” mikeheyworth@BRITARCH.AC.UK
To: BRITARCH@JISCMAIL.AC.UK
Sent: Friday, April 09, 2004 8:20 PM
Subject: English Heritage Pioneers a New Approach to Heritage Protection
The way we protect England’s heritage by listing buildings, scheduling ancient monuments and registering historic parks, gardens and battlefields is about to change. Proposals for a new system of heritage protection have been drawn up by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, and will be put to the test by English Heritage on 15 pilot sites across the country, announced today (Wednesday 7 April).
Centre Point, the landmark London office block and venue for today’s launch, is itself to be a pilot. Others include the buildings of the Piccadilly Line of the London Underground, the University of East Anglia, Kenilworth Castle, York’s Roman Walls, historic bridges in Cornwall, a couple of Ministry of Defence sites, Hampshire’s ancient water meadows and three great historic estates, Holkham in Norfolk, the Weld Estate in Dorset and the Godolphin Estate in Cornwall.
While maintaining the present levels of statutory protection, the aim of the new system is to change the culture of protecting the historic environment from its generally passive, reactive and often adversarial form towards an approach that is positive, collaborative and strategic.
The choice of the projects has been designed to focus on the most innovative aspects of the new system:
- the creation of a single unified list, called the “List of Historic Sites and Buildings of England”, that gives equal statutory recognition to different components of the historic environment formerly accorded varying status as listed (buildings), registered (parks and gardens and battlefields), and scheduled (archaeological sites);
- a single designation regime that allows separate archaeological, architectural and landscape elements all found on one site to be treated as one entity. This will overcome the confusing overlap or artificial demarcation which currently occurs where some structures are both listed and scheduled or a historic site contains individually listed buildings but the land between them is ignored; and
- the establishment of statutory management agreements that allow for strategic management over the medium to long term.
Simon Thurley, Chief Executive of English Heritage, said: “The pilots herald a new era in which there will be less distinction between the regulator and the regulated. They are designed to demonstrate that the management of the historic environment must be a partnership between all those with an interest in its future. The new system is based on a shared understanding not just of what makes the grand estate, the office block or the archaeological site important enough to be listed but of how it needs to be managed. This is an aspect entirely lacking in the present system.
“The 15 pilots comprise a whole range of different types of site, of varying degrees of complexity and with contrasting private or public ownership and management. Our partnership with local authorities will be a vital dimension to English Heritage’s work, as it is with other key partners such as the Historic Houses Association, the National Trust, the Country Landowners’ Association and the Ministry of Defence.”
Andrew McIntosh, Heritage Minister, said: “When we asked people about our ideas for change we were delighted by unprecedented levels of support. More than four in every five respondents favoured a single unified list of all heritage assets, and almost 100% supported plans to make the listing process more open. Next month I will publish these results in full and will outline how the Government will work to make improvement a reality.
“Today is an important step in this process. The pilot schemes put forward by English Heritage will allow us to test further and develop our ideas by working in real places, with real people. We hold the historic environment in trust for generations to come. It is vital that we fully explore proposals for change and get them right. I am convinced that this programme will offer that important opportunity, and I commend English Heritage on the impressive breadth and range of their projects.”
DCMS papers on the ecclesiastical exemption and marine archaeology are now out to consultation for a three month period. Both papers propose the same principles of integrated designation and strategic management. A further group of pilots, including marine and ecclesiastical examples, will be announced by English Heritage in the Autumn.
The results of these consultation papers, together with the results of the Historic Environment Records consultation paper, will be fed into the Government White Paper that will precede new primary legislation which the DCMS will seek to achieve at the earliest opportunity, probably in 2007.