A useful case of a decision against uPVC replacement windows in a conservation area in a Hereford conservation area (CA) has been noted to the IHBC.
Chris Partrick, Senior Building Conservation Officer at Herefordshire Council, has provided the following background to the case:
This is a useful decision against uPVC replacement windows in a conservation area.
The case arose during works to convert the upper floors of a restaurant into flats. This part of the site is an unlisted early C20 commercial building but it abuts a much earlier listed building and as it is located at a road junction, the whole complex is very prominent within the Hereford conservation area. The original scheme was quite benign and did not involve the existing timber first floor windows in the C20 building. However these were replaced with uPVC during the course of the works.
Herefordshire Council enforcement staff were alerted at an early stage and in a site meeting with the developer, secured a verbal ‘gentlemen’s agreement’ to reinstate the timber windows within three months. As no action was subsequently taken, an enforcement notice was issued on the basis that the uPVC windows deviated from the approved scheme.
The appeal against the enforcement notice was based on a number of grounds, including some technical issues around the address, but chiefly contended that the Council’s action was disproportionate, the harm insignificant and that other buildings elsewhere in the conservation area had similar replacement windows.
The Council’s case acknowledged this but argued that unsympathetic windows in such a prominent location did cause material harm to the character of the conservation area, and made extensive use of English Heritage’s ‘Heritage at Risk’ data on threats to conservation areas to illustrate concerns around the issue.
In his decision the Inspector disregarded the precedents claimed and concluded that ‘the windows fail to preserve the character or the appearance of the Hereford City Conservation Area, thereby causing less than substantial harm to the significance of that heritage asset. In the absence of any public benefits to outweigh that harm they conflict with UDP Policy and the NPPF’. He thus upheld the enforcement notice, setting a compliance period of 180 days, dismissed the appellant’s costs application and awarded partial costs to the Council.
Download a picture of the case here: LINK
Download the Appeal Decision here: LINK
