The Scotland Branch of the Institute of Historic Building Conservation (IHBC), the professional body for building and area conservation specialists, has released its scoping survey of conservation in Scotland’s local authorities, typically Conservation Officers who are members of the IHBC, a survey that reveals services perilously close to meltdown if cutbacks continue.
Conservation Officers are specially skilled officers who, typically, work within local planning services to provide front-line advice, guidance and support to residents, architects, developers and other businesses when dealing with historic places. Such historic places range from those managed through procedures such as listing or designation, to those places valued by a local community as part of its own heritage. The Conservation Officer helps guide, manage and promote appropriate change as part of their core duty, carried out in the public interest, to safeguard and regenerate Scotland’s unique heritage.
Although at least the equivalent of two full-time IHBC-level conservation staff is generally recommended by the IHBC for an average planning authority, the Institute’s survey identified an average of less than 2 across Scotland’s local authorities. In addition some authorities are already managing local heritage under specially delegated powers even though the IHBC’s scoping survey could not identify skilled conservation practitioners in these locations.
IHBC Scotland Branch past Chair Charles Strang said: “The figures should be of extreme concern to everyone from local communities to national business interests, such as tourism and high street shops, that rely on our heritage and quality places. The detailed survey the IHBC will undertake in 2011 will, hopefully, identify capacity that our initial survey was not able to capture, so the picture may not be quite as bleak as it first seems. In any case, our survey highlights the delicate balance of services within local authorities just now, and how any decrease arising from cutbacks could have a traumatic effect on the local places we all value.”
IHBC Director Seán O’Reilly said: “Our current ‘state of the nation’ survey is part of the preliminary programme the IHBC has undertaken to prepare for our more detailed survey of local authority conservation capacity across the entire United Kingdomearly in 2011.
The current investigation reveals conservation services that are teetering on the edge. The cutbacks that we all see coming, if not carefully directed, will disenfranchise from the democratic planning processes many of the local communities that value and help care for their historic places.
At a time when central government is paring back, it’s all the more important that local authorities maintain a core capacity to support the management of what is often the most economically important resource for a community – its unique places.”
Download the survey HERE
For more information on the IHBC see www.ihbc.org.uk
