When is “not a building” a building? When it is a Listed Building…
Recent musings by the Supreme Court [Dill vs SoS 2020] on the nature of listed buildings and challenging their designation set me wondering about what this could, theoretically, mean for the current rather ample list.
It will not be a surprise to many practitioners to learn that the list (in England) contains c. 2,900 milestones (listed in their own right), well over 5,000 individual monuments and 6,000 plus memorials (probably more but I stopped counting), at least 860 statues, a good hundred plus signs / sign posts and a fair few “vases” – just to name a few “not a building” listed buildings.
Many of these listings would challenge the oft quoted Skerritts criteria around size, permanence etc – and to those lucky souls who do not live in the world of heritage – they are clearly not “buildings”.
So, what happens now post-Dill? Do we see a gentle tide of challenges funnelled through PINS seeking to roll back half a century of ever inclusive listing? Maybe a short clarification to the 1990 Act? Or perhaps, let’s not hold our breath, an up-to-date Historic Environment Bill / Act to clarify matters (building on the, now historic, 2008 Heritage White Paper..), or do we convert these listed “buildings” to scheduled “monuments”?
My guess is that we will see applicants increasingly challenge issues associated with these types of “not buildings”, a sequence of challenges that will work their way through the courts until government and its advisors feel they need to act – until then I think we can all look forward to debating what makes something “a building”...
Dill v Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government [2020] UKSC 20
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/heritage-protection-for-the-21st-century-white-paper
#listedbuilding #heritage #planning
Planning and Historic Building Professional (retired from paid practice)
4 年I don't see any problem with milestones, or most monuments and memorials. They are clearly fixed and intended to be permanent. For example, at least a third of the height of a milestone is buried, and it takes a very heavy collision to uproot one, as I recently dicovered when comparing one that had been tilted just slightly by a vehicle impact, with another that had been uprooted in a collision so violent that the vehicle in question plunged two hundred feet into the valley below. Commemorative obelisks and war memorials are clearly intended to be permanent, even the few of them that may rest on the ground by their own weight rather than being completely fixed down. Likewise graveyard monuments are intended to be permanent, even though most of them are held in place by their own weight. As I read the judgement, the only objects which will be really contentious are ones where it may be a matter of dispute as the whether they formed part of an artistic design or other intention.
Urban Designer, Heritage and Placemaking professional. Photographer, author and Director of TheUrbanGlow Design & Heritage Ltd
4 年I’ve just read the decision. Seems like the question needed to be clarified but I’m not sure I agree with the outcome. As for milestones and lamp posts etc, surely these would be fixed for the purposes of skerritts? Wouldn’t they? I’m hoping the implications won’t be as great but I guess only time will tell! Fingers crossed or our new act eh!
Urban Designer, Heritage and Placemaking professional. Photographer, author and Director of TheUrbanGlow Design & Heritage Ltd
4 年Oh I hope you’re wrong. But I suspect you’re right!