C O N T E X T 9 8 : M A R C H 2 0 0 7 The power of prosecution Bob Kindred writes: While it has been clearly established for some time that the level of listed building enforcement activity by local authorities is lower than it should be, the IHBC has been instrumental in trying to improve the situation relating to prosecutions. Although the political profile of this issue was raised during the successful prosecution of Teresa Gorman MP in 1996, it took the notorious case of the demolition of the modernist listed house ‘Greenside’, in Virginia Water, Surrey, for questions to be asked in parliament in 2002. Two MPs were concerned about the adequacy of existing sanctions and wondered whether these needed to be increased. Consequently, the government gave assurances that it would investigate. Early in 2003 the ODPM commissioned initial research (now accessible through the DCLG website) by Philip Grover of Oxford Brookes University to evaluate this issue, whereupon the IHBC provided the essential baseline data. Grover concluded that while the levels of fines available to the courts were adequate, best practice guidance was required if local authorities were to prosecute listed building offences successfully in line with the secretary of state’s encouragement in PPG15. To prepare the guidance recommended by Grover and endorsed by the ODPM, further research was undertaken in the first quarter of 2006 by solicitors Burges Salmon. A questionnaire asked local authority members of the institute about their performance and the problems they had encountered in bringing successful prosecutions. The institute was therefore pleased that the DCLG published its Best Practice Guidance on Listed Building Prosecutions in December. Every local authority in England should now have received a copy. It is also downloadable in pdf format from the DCLG website. It is hoped that the advice will also be helpful in relation to proposed links with the recently formed National Association of Planning Enforcement (NAPE) over revisions to the RTPI’s Planning Enforcement Handbook and other related initiatives. Here is the crunch. None of this might have been possible (or certainly it would have been made very much more difficult) without the base data compiled by the IHBC with your cooperation. The original impetus for a National Listed Building Prosecution Database was the need for information during the Gorman prosecution when none existed. But the continuing database continues to rely on volunteered information from you (which page 41 of the new DCLG guidance also encourages). More information is required, especially on past cases (irrespective of the success of the outcome). The DCLG publication has already prompted submission of details of five cases from one local authority (previously not believed to be active). These have been very helpful additions. Please consider doing the same. Continue to forward details of outcomes, especially if you have not done so before. This will not only maintain the usefulness of the database but also provide a potential cross-reference to see if the new guidance does indeed encourage more prosecutions where appropriate, in the way in which we and DCLG hoped. Details of cases should be sent to [email protected]. Bob Kindred MBE was an external advisor to the recent DCLG study. The government disappoints again Bob Kindred writes: In my article in the previous issue about the Commons Select Committee Inquiry into Heritage Protection (‘We find the logic unconvincing’, Context 97, November 2007), I noted that the government was obliged to make its formal response. It had not appeared before I wrote the article. When the government response came at the end of October, it was greeted with deep disappointment but little surprise within the sector. SAVE Britain’s Heritage described it as ‘weak, badly drafted and in places factually incorrect’. David Lammy, minister for heritage at the DCMS, had given an assurance to the select committee in April cathedral, squeezed between the great buttresses which support the north aisle and north side of the cathedral, which were probably constructed in the second half of the 18th century. St Mary’s Hall, used since the 1960s as an exhibition space and to provide impromptu and voluntary teas for the cathedral, has been adapted by the addition of a new mezzanine floor and sophisticated kitchen facilities. This permits St Mary’s Hall now to be used as a restaurant for the increasing numbers of visitors to the cathedral. Peter Bird of Caroe and Partners, who is the present cathedral architect (and was formerly a conservation officer at Bath City Council), has prepared a scheme for the cloisters which is designed to reflect the historic appearance of the cloister without resorting to pastiche. The walls facing the cloister garth are all timber-framed, reflecting the character of the interior of the cathedral itself, and making the cloister garth into an internal and external space which restores the tranquillity of the cloister. The cloister walks are all built on the exposed foundations of the original buildings, and are constructed in such a way as to avoid interference or conflict with the standing historic fabric. The west wall of the west cloister has been reconstructed to its original height, in stone. The only addition which has never been present before is the new north porch, which has been added principally to provide dry, level access into the cloisters from the cathedral itself, and to provide a controlled environment for the precious carved stonework of the Romanesque north door of the cathedral. The new work inside St Mary’s Hall is unashamedly modern in appearance. The mezzanine stands on slender, raking cylindrical steel columns, and is set back from the external walls to provide a lightwell around its whole perimeter for the lower floor. The level of the mezzanine is such that visitors can now sit and enjoy views hitherto unavailable through the 14th century windows of the hall to the cathedral and to the Close to the north, an unparalleled setting anywhere in the British Isles. The Hall now provides refectory as well as exhibition space, to enhance the mission and community use of the cathedral. The work in St Mary’s Hall was completed in May 2006, ready for the summer season. The whole project was due for completion in early 2007. Jane Chamberlain was the project architect.
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