36 C O N T E X T 1 0 9 : M A Y 2 0 0 9 of its immediate environment].’7 A Force for our Future endorsed the social inclusion agenda for the heritage sector and commended character assessments as a tool for this.8 Unfortunately, these values are not represented in the detail of PPG15 and DETR 01/2001, which contain almost no other references to historical or communal values. Conservation area designation brings control over demolition, but not for small buildings or boundaries, and Shimizu v Westminster City Council means that partial demolition does not automatically require consent. That many controls relate to alterations visible from public areas emphasises the primacy of aesthetics. Much of English Heritage’s recent guidance supports a wider-ranging values set. Conservation Area Appraisals acknowledges the importance of plan form, vernacular traditions and local construction details, and concludes that ‘in the final analysis, heritage is what people value’.9 English Heritage advises that local distinctiveness can arise from historical associations of a place with developers, architects or movements, and ‘the communal value of the facilities which serve it or the importance that residents ascribe to its character’.10 Acknowledgement of intangible communal values even extends to restoring lost features such as designed landscapes, architectural features, traditional shop fronts and historic surfaces, where their importance to local people is demonstrable.11 ‘Normanhurst’ is a late 19th century villa on Brooklands Road in Sale, currently used as a hotel. In the 1860s Samuel Brooks developed the land between his house and the nearby railway station, naming the station and the road ‘Brooklands’. Strict criteria controlled the location and orientation of houses, and materials, landscaping and boundaries. Although many of the original houses have been replaced, subsequent development adhered to many of these earlier criteria, and Normanhurst to nearly all of them. Five planning applications for replacement buildings resulted in four planning public inquiries. The latest two post-dated the 2004 designation by Manchester City Council of a conservation area, which included Normanhurst. Valuable help was received from Manchester’s now retired urban design and conservation officer Warren Marshall and from the Brooklands Road Action Group (BRAG). Documents relating to designation and development control, and a very small number of personal interviews, were used to identify the values of conservation professionals, planning applicants (developers), local residents and the Planning Inspectorate. By coding the information gathered, the values of stakeholders were assigned to the four value categories, and their different priorities identified and compared. Although there were some differences in emphasis, the values of local residents, the city council and English Heritage were broadly similar. The council’s local development framework policies for conservation areas concentrate on aesthetic values. Although evidential and historical values were included in evidence for the last two inquiries, they were most clearly expressed in interviews for the case study than in the designation and original proofs of evidence. These included the interest of Normanhurst as the sole surviving building of the type that dominated the first development of the area. Normanhurst is an example of the link through surviving regular plot depth and grid pattern, positioning of buildings within their plots and homogeneity of materials, boundary treatments and planting, to the original intentions of Samuel Brooks. BRAG also made informed references to the historical value of the specifics of Brooks’ vision, the architecture of Normanhurst and landscaped settings for buildings. The major difference between residents and conservation professionals was the expression of communal values. Residents identified the spacious character of the area as a source of identity and pride, and valued the presence of family homes. This disparity is presumably because professionals felt these values to relate to amenity rather than heritage. The area was specifically developed with family homes and a major care home would affect the conservation area’s communal value. Rather than attempting to show that their proposals wouldpreserve or enhance the character and appearance of the area, planning applicants consistently disputed the values identified by other stakeholders. The architectural interest of Normanhurst was dismissed and proposals were submitted to replace the building References 1 Department of the Environment and Department of National Heritage, Planning Policy Guidance Note 15, p15 2 Delafons 1997, cited in Hobson, E, Conservation and Planning: changing values in policy and practice, p33 3 Department for Culture, Media and Sport, The Historic Environment: A Force for our Future, p7 4 Larkham, PJ ‘Residents’ attitudes to conservation’, Journal of Architectural Conservation, 6(1), p73 5 English Heritage, Conservation Principles: policies and guidance for the sustainable management of the historic environment 6 Department of the Environment/ Department of National Heritage, Planning Policy Guidance Note 15, p1 7 Department of Environment, Transport and the Regions and Department for Culture, Media and Sport, Circular 01/2001: Arrangements for Handling Heritage Applications: notification and directions by the Secretary of State, p30 8 Department for Culture, Media and Sport, The Historic Environment: A Force for our Future, p30 9 English Heritage, Guidance on Conservation Area Appraisals, p5-20 10 English Heritage, Suburbs and the Historic Environment, p1 11 English Heritage, Guidance on the Management of Conservation Areas, p21 12 English Heritage, Guidance on Conservation Area Appraisals, p25 Normanhurst is the sole surviving building conforming to the original specifications. Brooklands Road, running from Brooklands Station towards Brooks’ house
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjgyMjA=