The Case for Heritage Protection

October 12th

A few weeks ago, I attended a planning seminar at Ripley Castle in Yorkshire organized by the Historic Houses Association (HHA). It was a chilling presentation which contained a clear message: the current planning proposals – which close for consultation on October 17th– pose a serious threat, not just to our countryside, but to our heritage. With the removal of Planning Policy Statement 5 (PPS5) from the draft National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) , there are now few safeguards to prevent developers building 300 ft high industrial wind turbines right next to historic castles, new sprawling social housing next to the walls of stately homes or 12th century village churches.

No, no, no, I can already hear the government ministers curtly responding. There are ‘sufficient’ protections in place in the draft; we’ve just made it ‘simpler’. Well, the problem with this argument is that only two weeks ago, the fears of the heritage and conservation lobby have now been confirmed.

An appeal has just been allowed by a government inspector that will give permission for a four bedroom ‘executive home’ with detached garage to be built within 500 yards of the ‘The Great Barn’ in the Oxfordshire village of Great Coxwell .

When you drive into Great Coxwell , you see immediately why the 13th century timbered barn has been Grade 1 listed. It’s a testament to the skills of Gothic carpenters and the wealth and influence of the great monastic orders; the sole surviving part of a thriving 13th-century grange that once provided vital income to Beaulieu Abbey. The ‘Great Barn’ was described by William Morris as ‘the finest architecture’ in England and ‘unapproachable in its dignity’. It was given to the National Trust in 1956.

Unapproachable, that is, until government planning inspector Mr David Nicholson decided to interpret the new NPFF planning guidelines – although the draft plans are still in ‘consultation’ phase. Back in 2003, the same housing development was turned down by the council. In 1987, when anothern submission was rejected, the inspector wrote: 'I fully appreciate the obvious pressures for new housing in attractive villages, but there is equally a long standing commitment to the protection of our heritage of historic buildings.’

It’s not a commitment shared by Mr Nicholson (although admittedly the housing situation in the north of Great Coxwell has become more developed since 1987, and the case is complex). In the decision document that I was shown over a Spear's breakfast roundtable at the Tory Conference with Ian Wilson, Head of Government Affairs at the National Trust, Mr Nicholson stated that his decision was made because of ‘the publication of 'The Plan for Growth' and the draft NPPF’. If inspectors are now being required to put housing above heritage – in this case one of the finest medieval structures in the country - what hope is there for Grade 2 or Grade 2* buildings? What is the point of even having such Listed buildings?

What has happened at Great Coxwell, with ‘heritage’ being sidelined , is becoming widespread. Meanwhile, across the country, local objections to developers plans are being overturned by government inspectors. The fate of Kimbolton Castle in Huntingdonshire, (picture at top of blog), which has four Grade 1 facades by Vanbrugh, will be shortly decided after an appeal lodged by an energy giant who want to build seven Goliath-like wind turbines behind the castle. The landscape around the church of Little Gidding in Cambridgeshire is also threatened –the church where King Charles sought refuge in 1646 and which TS Eliot immortalized as the last of his Four Quartets (‘So, while the light fails\On a winter's afternoon, in a secluded chapel History is now and England’).

Wind turbines proposals are threatening Grade 1 Berkeley Castle in Gloucestershire – where Edward II was murdered, as well as the National Trust’s Grade I Morville Hall near Bridgnorth in Shropshire where Katherine Swift, author of the Morville Years, has her celebrated Dower House garden. Locals see these unwanted towering industrial structures as symbols of aesthetic , social and EU oppression.

But if it makes no aesthetic sense, it makes no economic sense either. ‘Heritage tourism’ is one of the ‘vital' sectors of the stagnant economy that is actually growing at the moment – at a rate of 2.6% a year. Higher than that predicted for manufacturing. History related tourism brings in £12.4 billion a year to the UK.

Our heritage marks us out from the rest of Europe. There are historical reasons for this which are sometimes forgotten; namely that Britain – unlike say Italy - has primogeniture and inheritance laws that allow the passing down of great historic estates through the generations. Our historic houses aren’t split up every generation, or confiscated (Nazi occupation) or stolen (French revolution).

So you’d have thought that the privileged, often aristocratic families who benefit from these traditions would be the first to stand up and protect the ‘historic environment’. Sadly, all too often, they’re keener on cash than being the custodians of our heritage.

Many landowners – often especially those with stately homes - secretly want the planning laws relaxed so they can make their properties more ‘viable’. They quite fancy a business park; a small housing development or a nice, useless, but lucrative wind farm (like Cameron’s father in law Sir Reginald Sheffield). There is nothing wrong at all with wanting to ensure the economic future of a historic estate - or just get the school fees paid - by turning an old tythe barn into a wedding venue or ‘function suite’. But existing planning laws already allow that as the HHA members experienced at Ripley Castle where the seminar took place in a beautifully converted former stable block now referred to as the castle 'east wing'. But the new proposals are quite starkly different, which is why the Country Land and Business Association (the CLA are pro rural ‘development’) are so keen to sit down with planning minister Greg Clark – along with the HHA - in the all important re-drafting of the heritage sections of the NPPF. In the draft, protection of 'heritage assets' are referred to just once.

When the CLA (of which I am a member) talk about the need for more ‘heritage protection’, what they actually mean is planning laws which allow more development, (including wind turbines) and hence safeguard the family pile, farm or estate. But even CLA members can have mixed feelings about such a message. One CLA county chairman recently admitted he had considered putting up a wind turbine on his historic estate but had dropped the idea after sensing that he had a responsibility to put the proposal to a local village ‘referendrum’. But such honourable behavior is increasingly rare today.

This division is why the heritage lobby has been mute in recent weeks. In particular the Heritage Alliance, chaired by Lloyd Grossman, the umbrella organization for nearly 100 conservation bodies including the National Trust, the CLA and the HHA (who have more privately owned historic houses open to the public than the National Trust and English Heritage combined). The truth is that the Alliance is really a coalition of competing conservation interests. The CLA are pushing one way, and the National Trust another, with the HHA somewhere in the middle. The National Trust are lobbying strongly for a 'presumption in favour of conservation'. This would re-instate much of the spirit of the old planning system under PPS5, and seems the right idea, especially when applied to the growing problem of wind farms close to heritage sites. Another imperative is for Greg Clark to give extra heritage protection to historic houses which contribute to heritage tourism.

At our Spear’s round-table breakfast, Ian Wilson of the National Trust made it clear that the NPPF is a ‘policy’ document of such seminal importance that it needs to be brought before Parliament. He said: ‘We cannot understand why the planning reforms are not being debated in the chamber of our democracy’ . Nor can I. But I think at the heart of the problem, there is a lack of debate about what the countryside is actually for. Yes, the planning system urgently needs reform but good planning must aim to get the balance right between heritage, housing needs and the environment. With the de facto ‘yes’ to development, this balance has gone astray. To regain the balance this country so richly deserves, to protect our heritage, we urgently need clarity and leadership from the government before October 17th.

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