{"id":8900,"date":"2014-11-07T17:50:30","date_gmt":"2014-11-07T17:50:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ihbconline.co.uk\/newsachive\/?p=8900"},"modified":"2014-11-07T17:50:30","modified_gmt":"2014-11-07T17:50:30","slug":"vic-socs-birmingham-fears-1-officer-for-2k-historic-gems","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/?p=8900","title":{"rendered":"Vic Soc\u2019s Birmingham fears: 1 officer for 2k+ historic gems"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Victorian Society (Vic Soc) says that unless urgent action is taken the city faces a repeat of the 60s and 70s, when many architectural gems were bulldozed, because Birmingham has just one official to care for its crumbling iconic buildings, despite 16 more landmarks being placed on English Heritage\u2019s \u2018at risk\u2019 list.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Birmingham Post writes<\/span>:
\nAlthough the council has an official heritage champion, Coun. Phil Davis, and a specialist panel to advise on applications affecting listed buildings, there has been a cut in staff supporting these over five years \u2013 from seven down to one, with a second post unfilled.<\/p>\n

That single official has to oversee Birmingham\u2019s 2,000 listed buildings and 30 conservation areas.<\/p>\n

The council said it planned to fill the vacancy but could not say when the recruitment process would start.<\/p>\n

Chairman of the Victorian Society\u2019s Birmingham and West Midlands Group Stephen Hartland said: \u2018One conservation officer cannot possibly deal properly with all the work from Britain\u2019s second city.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Birmingham Council must act now to ensure that, at the very least, the existing conservation officer vacancy is filled in the immediate future.\u2019<\/p>\n

He said the society recognised the council faced huge financial challenges but said backing conservation makes economic sense.<\/p>\n

He said: \u2018Cutting the conservation budget to this extent is a false economy. For the city to succeed, it must be an attractive place to relocate to and invest in. It\u2019s extremely worrying that conservation is not mentioned once in the council\u2019s premier HS2 regeneration scheme which straddles two conservation areas.<\/p>\n

\u2018A properly resourced conservation team could ensure that this omission is rectified and that the city\u2019s mid-20th century planning mistakes are not repeated.\u2019<\/p>\n

Mr Hartland added that the Curzon Street Masterplan, centred on the proposed HS2 terminal, was a striking example of where the council is ignoring heritage.<\/p>\n

\u2018About half of the masterplan site is in two Digbeth conservation areas. Yet the masterplan does not identify the conservation areas within its maps, and the word conservation cannot be found once in the document.<\/p>\n

\u2018We conclude from this that the council considers that conservation has no part to play in economic regeneration, or perhaps is even an obstruction to it.\u2019<\/p>\n

A Birmingham City Council spokesman said: \u2018Conservation continues to be an important issue in terms of preserving and protecting Birmingham\u2019s listed buildings and conservation areas.\u00a0 We will be recruiting a second conservation officer. The post will be a permanent role which will be advertised externally, but when that takes place is still to be confirmed.\u2019<\/p>\n

The Birmingham Post article<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Victorian Society (Vic Soc) says that unless urgent action is taken the city faces a repeat of the 60s and 70s, when many architectural gems were bulldozed, because Birmingham has just one official to care for its crumbling iconic … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8900","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sector-newsblog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8900","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8900"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8900\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8901,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8900\/revisions\/8901"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}