C O N T E X T 1 0 9 : M A Y 2 0 0 9 33 The study concluded that the total repair costs for buildings within the site were in the order of £35 million, with total development costs likely to be over £70 million. Undeterred, the commitment by English Partnership to the restoration and conversion of the three buildings at the entrance to the site has given a kick start to development within the main colliery site. An ERDF grant of £1.6 million and English Partnerships funding of £2.6 million brought these buildings into use for offices, and upgraded the entrance road into the site. This early pump priming, and the success of the main offices, which are now 85 per cent occupied, changed the perception of the site and its potential, particularly to the funding community. Over the past year a further £1 million has been spent. The weighbridge building has been refurbished and now operates as the main security office for the site. Mine workings, including three previously untreated mineshafts, have been stabilised by grouting. Condition surveys have been undertaken on a number of buildings with a view to informing the next steps in development, and to identify buildings which might be attractive to private sector investment. This planning is currently under way. A condition survey of the Hesketh Heapstead and tub halls – the jewel in the crown in heritage terms – has identified full repair costs of up to £6 million on this structure alone. English Heritage has committed to further grant of £3 million if there is an agreed way forward. The involvement of local communities in the project has led to the formation of a voluntary group, the Friends of Chatterley Whitfield. This lively and expert group provides guides for visiting parties, and has rescued and safeguarded historic equipment from the now-demolished 1980s mock mine. The group is hoping to restore the magnificent Hesketh Steam Winder, but the discovery of more asbestos has put this on hold. What kind of ownership and management structure should be set up for a site of such national significance? Local government and voluntary ownership has failed here, so is it time for a national organisation to bite the bullet? It looks inevitable that the range of uses will include a historic site visitor operation. If so, on what scale and run by whom? Arising from this, how should the local and specialist communities be involved in the decision taking on the site, and in its subsequent operation? Turning now to use, some of the buildings and structures – such as the headgear – are essentially monuments, whose future role really should be to tell their remarkable story, but most can be used and adapted for new purposes. There is room here already for imaginative new development if that helps the place thrive, so should some demolition be thinkable in so complete a historic place? What can happen here now to generate enough revenue to sustain the site’s inevitably high recurrent costs? The local context was challenging even before the current economic problems, as the coalition of six towns that is Stoke-on-Trent struggles for life. ‘It were pits or pots when I left school’ – the pits are gone, and now the pots are going too. So how can economic prosperity come to this urban fringe site without drawing life away from already struggling historic town centres? Then there are the technical issues of conserving the buildings. How does one approach the repair philosophy of buildings intended for short lives, such as the workshops with half-brick wall panels in steel frames? Is the design and specification more important than the actual fabric? Is this comparable with the conservation of working historic ships and transport artefacts, rather than with most historic structures? How can modern energy requirements be incorporated into buildings which were designed with no consideration for such issues because of the abundance of fuel on their doorsteps? The presentation of the site brings other issues: should it at least in part be conserved in its present decayed and partially overgrown state? Should the landscape conserve the scars of industry? It is too early to learn from ChatterleyWhitfield, but in retrospect should this perhaps have been a soft-start project like Dean Clough, Halifax, rather than a big bang? With a really big project there is a great deal of pressure to do nothing until you can do everything – pressures from funding bodies, from risk-averse corporatism, even from professionalism. The result can be paralysis and an over-reliance on strategy, while decay continues. At a place like this the public interest strategy is already explicit in its national designation. A strategic decision has been taken that it should survive. So let us hope that the partnership can get on with it, one step at a time, and expect the destination to change before it gets there. John Yates is a past chair of the IHBC and an English Heritage inspector. He was the initial director of the Chatterley Whitfield Regeneration Project in 1999–2000. This article is written in his personal capacity, and does not necessarily set out the current policies and priorities of the Chatterley Whitfield Partnership and its members. ChatterleyWhitfield in its heyday. Photo from the National Monuments Records, the public archive of English Heritage (Crown copyright). A conveyor and waste tip at Chatterley Whitfield (Photo: Boris Baggs, ©English Heritage)
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