Issue 20 of the ‘Public Service Review’, a key publication for the public policy sector, carries an article by IHBC Director Seán O’Reilly highlighting the environmental value of conservation, and how improving fiscal support for maintenance could help this ‘Conservation Nation’.
Opening a built environment section featuring major policy players such as Paul Morrell, the Government’s Chief Construction Adviser, the IHBC Director Seán O’Reilly highlights how the rise of a localism policy can help ‘the most obvious route to reducing environmental damage… looking after our places properly, as we would with any other valuable resource or irreplaceable asset’.
He identifies problems in wider government policy that militate against effective resource management in the built environment, notably a damaging tax regime that favours new build over the maintenance and improvement of traditional and historic properties.
He also presents three lessons from conservation professionals to policy advisers:
1) Places change, so don’t try to stop change, manage it.
2) Changing places is complicated, so get to know the places and people as best you can.
3) Changing places is difficult, so people must work together to succeed.
See the article on pps 69-70 of ‘Public Service Review: Local Government and the Regions’, at: LINK
