The IHBC’s online database on prosecutions in England, compiled by IHBC member Bob Kindred MBE, and part of the suite of resources the IHBC maintains on Local authority skills, helping support conservation inside and outside local authorities, is featured in his article for English Heritage’s new Crime-themed issue of the ‘Conservation Bulletin’.
Bob Kindred said: ‘This new edition of the ‘Conservation Bulletin’ gives a very welcome prominence to the vexed issue of heritage crime. It has bedeviled the sector for far too long but has been seen as a political, policing and practical heritage management priority only recently.’
‘It was very pleasing to be able to promote in the current edition the value of statutory action for criminal offences alongside the IHBC’s ongoing information gathering role, as played by its listed building prosecutions database.’
In his text, Kindred also offered the sobering warning that: ‘Legislators and policy-makers have generally assumed that heritage management is underpinned by virtuous intentions that are positive and enthusiastic at best, but benign at worst. Unfortunately in too many instances this is not the case.’
‘Carrying out any work that may affect the character of a listed building or almost any work to a scheduled monument without consent is a criminal offence, as is the unauthorised demolition of a building in a conservation area. This re?ects the seriousness with which Parliament views unauthorised works and the consequent loss of heritage…’
Kindred, as compiler of the database, explains how he, with the IHBC as the web host of the information, were delighted by the weight given to this information in delivering real conservation outcomes, writing:
‘More recently, in a case in Richmond upon Thames in 2011, the presiding judge remarked on the usefulness of the IHBC’s database in setting a context for an appropriate level of ?ne, and expressed the view that additional background information on individual cases would greatly assist the judiciary in sentencing. This was duly undertaken by IHBC in 2012.’
Kindred’s commentary on the prosecutions, which arose from these comments, is publicly available for download from the IHBC website.
English Heritage Governance and legal director Mike Harlow concluded his introduction to this issue as follows: ‘One in five of all properties is damaged by crime very year. Historic properties have to do better than that to survive as long into the future as they have done in the past. By working with the police, Crown Prosecution Service and local authorities, the heritage sector can help to make sure that they do just that.’
For IHBC’s Conservation services skills resource for England see: LINK
For the prosecutions commentary see: LINK
For the prosecutions database see the tabs linked from: LINK
Download Conservation Bulletin for free at: LINK
English Heritage Publications: LINK
