Phil WeatherbyPlanning Systems Improvement DivisionCommunities and Local GovernmentEland HouseBressenden PlaceLondon SW1E 5DU

PPS 15 PLANNING FOR THE HISTORICENVIRONMENT – Consultation Response of theBanbury Civic Society

I am responding to this consultation in my capacity as Chairman of the Banbury CivicSociety.I have worked in the heritage profession for over thirty years, formerly as anarchaeologist and archaeological consultant, now as a Senior Historic EnvironmentConsultant at RPS Plc, Europe’s largest planning and environmental consultancywith a staff of over 5500.I have structured our response as follows:

A. General Overview B. Detailed comments on the text of the draft PPS C. Responses to the consultation questions.

A.General Overview

The Banbury Civic Society welcomes in principle the replacement of PPG 15 andPPG16 in line with the principles of set out in the Heritage Protection Bill. We dorecognise a real value in the objectives of brevity and clarity in planning guidance. Inthis instance we find that the insistence on a given word count would result in a realreduction in the protection for our heritage. This is because the PPS:

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Undervalues heritage and the need to protect it; and

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Provides insufficient indication of the policy and procedures to be adopted inassessing:i. the potential of the historic environment in terms of both resource andopportunityii. what constitutes harm to the public interests within itiii. how to weigh the balance between competing public benefits in ways thatsecure conservation of the historic environment, and its place in sustainabledevelopment.We currently reject the attempt to place much critical guidance on the interpretationof the PPS in a supplementary Historic Environment Planning Practice Guide. This isbecause the PPS itself only claims that its policies

‘may also be material, depending

on the particular circumstances of the case, to decisions on individual planning applications’

. If the PPS itself

may

only

be material

, it is most unclear what weight, if any, will be afforded to the Practice Guide. It also risks a situation where mostdecision–makers will read the PPS, yet never read the Practice Guide. Given thecomprehensive and robust nature of PPGs 15 and 16, we regard the prospect of theseparate publication of the PPS and the Practice Guide with very great alarm indeed,most especially if the new PPS were to emerge in anything like its current form.

Unfortunately, if the Government’s intention had been to provide a robust frameworkfor all classes of heritage asset that will not reduce existing levels of heritageprotection, we find that, without significant and substantial changes, the PPS is not fitfor purpose, will result in significantly less protection for the historic environment andthat its implementation will cause significant and irreversible damage to the fabric of our historic environment. Rather than give clarity, the Draft PPS is incredibly vagueand open to a massive amount of local interpretation when compared to the verydetailed and robust PPGs 15 and 16. This will keep barristers and consultants busyfor years and will result in ‘Shimizu’-like High Court judgements that will underminethe intended principles within the PPS until such time as they can be overturned byfurther primary legislation.Fundamentally, there is no clear vision statement, unlike PPG 15 which starts: “It isfundamental to the Government's policies for environmental stewardship that thereshould be effective protection for all aspects of the historic environment. The physicalsurvivals of our past are to be valued and protected for their own sake, as a centralpart of our cultural heritage and our sense of national identity. They are anirreplaceable record which contributes, through formal education and in many other ways, to our understanding of both the present and the past.”).The PPS encourages the view that heritage is an asset that can be traded off against(unspecified) 'community' and 'climate change' benefits, without a key visionstatement, without detailed guidance and without the current concept that the historicenvironment should not be ‘sacrificed for short-term and often illusory gains’. It wouldbe naïve not to believe that developers and planners will take the PPS as a greenlight to trade historic assets to illusory ‘community benefits’ such as maximisinghousing density, planning gain, additional Council Tax receipts and the prospect of securing of community facilities that may well be impossible to sustain or which mayeven never be built. Similarly, the PPS encourages householders to deface fragilehistoric buildings with ill-considered plastic double glazing and will encouragedevelopers and planners to gut or demolish historic buildings on the basis of spuriousclaims that replacement development will have a better thermal performance thanexisting buildings.Terms like ‘place-making’ have replaced 'cherished local scene', and ‘significance’has replaced 'historic and architectural interest' and 'character and appearance'. Thenew terms are unsupported by primary legislation, which will lead to confusion andthe potential of legal challenge. It must be remembered that most LPAs have beeninstructed by the Government’s Planning Inspectors not to ‘save’ the historicenvironment policies in their Local Plans, on the basis that these policies only reflectwhat is already in the PPGs. Unless LPAs chose to adopt PPGs 15 and 16 asSupplementary Planning Documents, they will be left in a policy vacuum where thePPS fails to provide relevant guidance on the interpretation of existing statutory

instruments (notably the Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas Act and theAncient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act).The PPS takes the view that the lower the significance of a historic asset, the lower the presumption in favour of its retention. While it is superficially attractive to requirethat a developer retain significant heritage assets or aspects of an asset that can beagreed to be significant, our experience is that a determined developer will go togreat lengths to diminish the significance of a listed building by arguing, for example,that later alterations or additions have reduced its significance.We welcome the aspiration that the local community should be consulted onapplications affecting historic assets. The PPS nevertheless fails to adequatelyaddress or clarify the mechanics of community inclusion. What is the developmentthreshold for local consultation? Who are ‘the local community’ and how, and at whatstage, of the development process will they be engaged? Immediate neighbours maywell welcome the redevelopment of a neglected historic building, whereas thebuilding may hold considerable importance to the wider local community, localamenity societies and special interest groups. Lack of guidance here may lead totargeted consultation to produce a desired response. What weight, if any, will localviews be afforded in the development control process, especially with non-designated buildings and historic landscape features that may be viewed as ‘lowsignificance’ simply due to their lack of formal designation?We welcome the aspiration to make better use of Historic Environment Records.Currently most Historic Environment Records are currently completely inadequate for the demands proposed. The PPS effectively limits the definition of heritage to what ison the HER. This disregards the majority of heritage assets, including in many caseslocally listed buildings. It also disregards the reality that the majority of newarchaeological discoveries are made on site with high potential but which have beensubject to no previous formal investigation and which are thus not recorded on therelevant Historic Environment Record.We are also highly concerned that the PPS has no regard to the proven economicpotential of the historic environmentFinally, as the PPS dramatically increases the scope of what constitutes historicassets well beyond national designations, we are also highly concerned that the PPSfails to provide robust coverage of the resource implications of the proposedchanges. This is not only with regard to the provision of specialist conservationofficers, but also with regard to the provision of expert officers within LPAs capable of providing informed advice on archaeology, historic gardens, battlefields, wrecks andhistoric landscape. The lack of any guidance in the PPS about how and whenstatutory consultees need be engaged is also a major concern.The principal issues that we think need to be addressed are to:

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Ensure that our Historic Environment is fully recognised for its intrinsicsustainability, inherent values, and the contribution it makes to the wellbeingand future of this country.