Scotland’s new Historic Environment Bill has received the support of Parliament, following substantial scrutiny that has been informed by timely research supplied by The Institute of Historic Building Conservation (IHBC) highlighting threats to local government conservation capacity.
The Historic Environment (Amendment) (Scotland) Scotland Bill was backed by Parliament as a Bill harmonising the existing legislation protecting historic buildings and monuments. The Bill has been strongly welcomed across the sector in Scotland, while many bodies supporting the Bill, such as the IHBC and Built Environment Forum Scotland, BEFS, the link body for built and historic environment interests, also promoted additional provisions.
Seán O’Reilly, IHBC Director, said: “The IHBC’s own research highlighted the delicate state of conservation services in councils, a scenario made substantially worse by the devastating effect the cutbacks in local government are having on conservation across Scotland. These cutbacks actually threaten Scotland’s economic recovery, as for example we now know that the country’s built heritage is the lynchpin of one of our few growth areas, tourism, as the Minister recognised in her promotion of the Bill, while looking after and improving existing buildings accounts for some half of the entire construction industry.
The cross-sector support for wider amendments, given coherence under the banner of (BEFS), did not succeed in securing substantially stronger statutory support for the management of our historic places. However the work by the IHBC and other members of BEFS helped focus political awareness on the huge threats to the infrastructure of heritage management in Scotland.”
Background
The Bill includes provisions for:
- the introduction of certificates for immunity from listing during a development
- statutory inventories for gardens and designed landscapes and for battlefields ensuring these nationally important sites are identified and recorded
- extending Scottish Ministers’ grant making powers to support a wider range of historic environment projects than are currently eligible
- introducing a series of enforcement provisions which that will harmonise aspects of historic environment legislation with the planning regime and enhance the ability of regulatory authorities to deal with urgent threats
Culture and External Affairs Minister Fiona Hyslop said of the wider support for the Bill: “This is an important step in the protection of our historic architecture, skills and monuments. We should not underestimate how important these are. Every community in the country has buildings that represent the social and industrial change that has gone before and has a part to play in telling the story of how it has been shaped. We need robust legislation to ensure that we can continue to enjoy a built landscape that gives us glimpses into our past and physical connections to our ancestors. This Bill will update and harmonise the existing Acts to make them more efficient.
I would like to thank all of the people and organisations that took part in the consultation that has helped us shape this Bill. The response to the aims of the Bill has been incredibly supportive throughout its progress through parliament. Any divergence of opinion has been focused on what the best way forward is. I think that that in itself shows how important our historic environment is. It is that positivity and the aim of enabling people to maintain and celebrate the unique legacy we have that was behind this amending Bill, which I believe will make a real difference in retaining the architecture and monuments that are important to Scotland.”
The Bill will amend provisions in the existing Listed Building and Conservation Areas (Scotland) Act 1997, the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act 1979 and the Historic Buildings and Ancient Monuments Act 1953.
The historic environment makes a significant contribution to our economy, directly generating 41,000 Full Time Equivalent jobs and making a £2.3bn contribution to Scotland’s Gross Value Added (scotland.gov.uk/1409_heacs.pdf)
Historic Scotland News: LINK
Download the Stage 3 Briefing here
Download BEFS’ Extracts from Stage 3 discussions here
For the official report see: LINK
For the IHBC’s evidence see the NewsBlog report at: LINK
