Key heritage interests in Wales, including the Institute of Historic Building Conservation (IHBC) and the Civic Trust for Wales, are urging stakeholders to contribute to a consultation draft study into Wales’ planning process before the closing date of 8 April, as the report fails to reflect the true value of the historic environment to Wales.
The Welsh Assembly Government, which is currently conducting a comprehensive review of the planning application process, has asked GVA Grimley to conduct research to inform the review, work that is taking place under the guidance of a Steering Group which contains representatives from the public, private and voluntary sectors.
Expressing concerns over the first draft, now under consultation, IHBC Wales Branch Chair Richard Dean said: “It is unfortunate that the perspectives of many users are not fairly balanced across the study. Securing substantial responses from the heritage sector, rather than just announcing it to a constituency already hard pressed and over stretched, would have directed the researchers to perspectives on their figures that should lie at the hear of the final report.
For example, on page 7 the report asserts that only 3.6% of applications involve Listed Building or Conservation Area Consents, but a widely-used base-line figure is that up to one third of applications have heritage impacts that can require specific conservation advice or action. We consider that the researchers need to acknowledge the different perspectives on our heritage that these contrasting figures represent. At present they do not give a balanced perspective.”
Matthew Griffiths, Director of The Civic Trust for Wales, said: “The bias within the draft report also reflects the lack of capacity within the third sector to respond to this sort of consultation, and the need for more overarching support for the heritage sector. Community groups, and organisations within our sector find it hard to play a part in exercises of this kind, and capacity limitations simply precluded any substantial involvement by ourselves.”
The Director of the UK body of the IHBC, Seán O’Reilly, said: “Given the apparent shortage of substantial research to specify the central role played by the heritage in Wales’ economy – both as a driver for social and economic success and as a sustainable resource requiring management for the benefit of future generations – the IHBC will direct the attention of the consultants to substantial research carried out in England that gives crucial and informed context to their investigations. If conservation or historic environment interests in Wales have any other information relevant to the study, this should be passed on to them as soon as possible, and certainly before 8 April, when the consultation ends.
The IHBC has long stressed the urgent need for dedicated studies into these matters in Wales and, in their absence, we hope that Cadw will endorse the relevance of the English studies to planning in Wales, as well as lodge its own evidence with the consultants. We also hope Cadw will consider how best to represent the added value that Wales’ heritage brings – or can bring – as a resource that is managed directly within the planning process on behalf of all the communities in Wales. This way Cadw will play its own key role in responding to an official report that, at this stage, is a disappointment that almost wholly fails to reflect the role and values of the built heritage across the country.”
