The Institute of Historic Building Conservation (IHBC) has responded to the DCMS proposals for changing listed building consent, condemning the consultation both for its failure to build on current service strengths, as well as for questionable headline proposals that, IHBC Director Seán O’Reilly said, ‘will at best only add regulatory inefficiencies, and so threaten growth by not providing realistic and timely solutions’.
Seán O’Reilly said: ‘The IHBC, like many others, has been very critical both of the timing and of the content of the DCMS consultation. Our members include active practitioners from a wide-range of disciplines who work in public, private and third sectors. Our debate was often energetic, but there was easy agreement that existing processes were not understood, and that there are much simpler and more timely ways to secure improvements.’
‘We recognise that there are huge problems in many areas of the sector, often, but not always, in the face of hard work from skilled but over-stretched officers. Having recorded a 31% drop in England’s local authority conservation capacity since 2006, the IHBC is only too aware of the scale of what’s been happening. But tarnishing all services regardless of achievements, in a consultation that also asks for evidence to support the need to bypass them, seems to us to be an especially cruel and unhelpful approach.’
‘Crucially, the consultation itself also fails to build on the substantial improvements we’ve all seen in professional conservation in recent years, from the clear benefits brought to those areas where good conservation services have survived – many in the constituencies of government MPs – to the RIBA’s acceptance of the benefits of conservation accreditation across its membership. While the IHBC has also helped identify many practical and cost-effective opportunities for improvement to Adrian Penfold’s perceptive review for BIS, as well to leading client bodies such as the CLA, few of these are apparent in the DCMS paper.’
‘Most unfortunate is that the profound flaws in the consultation process mean that our response, like many others, could at best cover only some of the answers that would help clients, agents and regulators deliver sustainable development and the government’s ‘Growth Agenda’. So we’re asking the Minister and his advisers in DCMS to return again to the table and explore practical solutions that will actually make a difference!’
‘And what of the chances of delivering the so-called ‘Option 4’ headline scenario, involving agents contracted to clients simultaneously serving as officers of regulators?’
‘This would require a whole new regulatory and statutory framework in England, operated by UK professional bodies on top of their existing member commitments. It would need to unite private and public sectors, clients and third parties, as well as regulators and agents, all under a single umbrella of professional probity and legislative coherence. The likelihood of that surviving challenges over inefficiencies and increased regulation, not to mention transparency, propriety and individual personal rights, well, some of us think that’s about as likely as finding Lilliput on Mars.’
Download the IHBC response HERE
See also the links below for:
POS
JCNAS
SPAB
RTPI
Heritage Alliance
National Trust
English Heritage
ALGAO
CLA
Civic Voice
AMS
IFA
