The IHBC’s internal interim commentary on the draft Historic Environment Planning Policy Statement (PPS 15), currently under consultation from government (CLG), is being made available through the IHBC’s website to help widen public engagement in this key part of the planning process.
IHBC Director Seán O’Reilly said: “Any final PPS will shape how planning authorities and regulators manage heritage in England for many years to come. So it’s a consultation document of huge importance to anyone who cares about how we look after our historic places as resources for our future. And we all know that if we don’t get the process right in the local authorities, we’re going to pay a high price.
Increasingly, the historic environment is recognised as a resource that brings benefits far beyond its potential as a cultural memory or tourist asset. Waste and carbon emissions, lost economic opportunities, and, as CABE has recently highlighted, impoverished lives, are all inevitable outcomes for the future if we don’t manage limited and rich resources, such as traditional buildings, with these issues in mind.
This is the first time we’ve launched a draft commentary on a major consultation document like this, so it is a bit of an experiment. The paper is going to key panel members anyway, and so it is in the public domain. It’s sensible to let anyone interested know about it. Indeed, this is the best way to reach and engage with our many members – now more than 2000 – and to include the full diversity of stakeholders who look to our web site to keep them up to date.
The IHBC’s interim paper, collated by our Consultations Consultant, is an internal paper that draws together the full breadth of responses from our multi-disciplinary members. Members are specialists from across the diverse range of skills that underpin the conservation of our built and historic places, so the commentary already represents a huge body of professional and specialist knowledge. Using this document, people can assess for themselves the key issues, as our members have considered them. This lets us promote more informed engagement with all the issues of place management, the challenge at the heart of Heritage Protection Reform as English Heritage has regularly highlighted.
Developed primarily for internal use, the IHBC’s commentary is very much still a working document, so there’s a lot to be done and agreed yet. But we’d encourage anyone involved in the historic environment to look at this consultation and respond to CLG accordingly – whether you are a resident, an owner, a player in the £5bn a year heritage construction industry, or if you care about how we can use the rich resources of traditional and historic places to benefit our future world.”
IHBC members and others can forward their thoughts to the IHBC by going tohttp://www.ihbc.org.uk/consultations.htm Many other sector bodies will be responding, and many of these will be linked from the IHBC’s web site at www.ihbc.org.uk.
Download the IHBC’s internal draft commentary on the HE PPS (word) (pdf)
For the consultation on PPS 15, Planning for the Historic Environment, see
http://www.communities.gov.uk/publications/planningandbuilding/consultationhistoricpps
