10 C O N T E X T 8 1 : S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 3 of the Country House’ which could be said to have triggered the whole restoration business. Marcus Binney, in the BBC’s published supplement to the programme, lists the culprits, but the show failed to touch on the fundamental changes that are really required; a flat rate of five per cent VAT for newbuild and repairs, and streamlined CPO procedures. Newman Brothers’ remarkably complete coffin works, which failed to grab the public vote (perhaps because of the number of times Ptolemy Dean said ‘Oh no!’ when confronted with the impedimenta of death), has now been taken on by the RDA, in conjunction with Birmingham Conservation Trust. Gateshead’s skeletal Ravensworth Castle should surely be an RDA project, especially as it is planned to use it for public offices. This is what statutory bodies should be about, rather than Yorkshire Forward, another RDA, inhabiting shiny new accountancyarchitecture offices while surrounded by sunning 18th and 19th century industrial buildings desperate for a new use. But perhaps that’s too serious for what after all is really only a slightly grown up Big Brother. From a buildings preservation trust point of view, the programme could have tried harder. The Association of Preservation Trusts and its sister organisation the Architectural Heritage Fund worked with Endemol from the outset to find suitable projects. The two bodies are listed in the supplement, but otherwise are largely invisible. In fact, no less than 18 of the 30 contenders, including Victoria Baths, have had help from the AHF, the majority of them as BPTs. And yet it was left to Prince Charles on the last night to mention them and the civic societies. The AHF and APT have now employed a PR consultant to make the most of the sudden upswing in public interest in decayed buildings, and Maria Perks, AHF’s Projects Development Manager, has been on numerous local radio shows – as well as being at the rather more glamorous last night party. So, the verdict? Maria is unequivocal, ‘A bloody good thing’. Me? Well, just The sham castle atWentworth, another runner-up pass me the tweed jacket with the suede elbow patches and that bust of Lord Reith, would you? Judith Martin is project organiser for the Industrial Buildings Preservation Trust.These are her own opinions and not necessarily those of IBPT. [email protected] The Architectural Heritage Fund [email protected] www.ahfund.org.uk Tel 020 7925 0199 The Association of Preservation Trusts [email protected] www.heritage.co.uk/heritage/apt Tel 020 7930 1629 Funding sources for restoration work are now available online at www.ffhb.org.uk. Staircase at Lissan House, Cookstown,Tyrone, one of the finalists in the recent Restoration programme The conservatory atWentworth
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