BaR News Round-up October 2024

What is the most effective approach to buildings at risk? This month SAVE wrote to the Welsh Minister for Culture to argue for making Cadw's listed building survey public.  Meanwhile Historic Environment Scotland published a report into their at risk register but announced that it was pausing its work.  While the debate goes on, we also have some of the latest news from the update cycle of SAVE's register and some highlights of a recent trip to Salford to talk about buildings at risk and regeneration.

Cadw's Condition and Use Survey

SAVE has written to the Welsh Minister for Culture to draw attention to our article "A Survey of Nearly Everything" in our summer 2024 Newsletter.  We argued that the scope of Cadw's survey, using a heritage consultancy, of all listed buildings in Wales on a 5 year rolling basis appears comprehensive.  However, the failure to put the information on buildings at risk to use or make it available to others in the sector is a huge missed opportunity. 

We said that making the survey data publicly available (with any sensitive data redacted) would reflect that it is produced using public funds.  Rather than being an obscure collection of data available to a limited number of people, it would become a public register against which progress could be reported.  This would allow local councils, heritage organisations and those with responsibility for historic buildings to identify, prioritise and then assist buildings at risk.  The letter also questioned the methodology by which the survey is currently compiled.  We raised the concern that the survey significantly under records the number of historic buildings at risk and the level of risk. 

We reiterated the regenerative potential of restoring and finding new uses for historic buildings as a powerful tool in fighting rural and urban decline and promoting tourism and the understanding and appreciation of heritage. Raising awareness of the numbers of buildings which are deteriorating in condition focusses attention on the need for action and can attract new funders, participants and users.  We await a reply.

Historic Environment Scotland's Heritage at Risk Register Review

Published on 3 September 2024, the report on HES's Heritage at Risk Register has been produced by an independent consultancy and is an useful analysis not just of HES's register but also of how to make an at risk register most useful in terms of delivering results.  Is it primarily an information source, a tool for restoration and reuse of at risk buildings or a source for wider trends in the historic environment?  It compares HES's register with Cadw's survey ("it functions primarily as a source of trend data on the historic environment as a whole, for the purposes of strategic analysis and monitoring") and Historic England's Heritage at Risk Register ("an awareness raising tool.......and a management tool that directs efforts by HE and its partners to identify viable opportunities to restore, redevelop and reuse important at-risk buildings.."). Those interviewed as part of the survey felt HE's holistic management approach was the most effective.

SAVE gets a specific mention too:  "...SAVE Britain’s Heritage buildings at risk register is possibly the best example of a register explicitly focused on attracting restoring purchasers, generating press interest and securing public support. "  However, it notes, rightly that we do not hold ourselves out as presenting formalised data on the buildings.  The report does go on to observe that "SAVE’s reputation for successfully facilitating resolutions of, in some cases, extremely challenging cases suggests that this approach remains effective."

The report raises good questions about how best to use and present information on buildings at risk which will be of interest to anyone who cares about our built heritage whether in Scotland or not and we will continue to reflect on its conclusions. 

SAVE Buidings at Risk Register updates - September 

This month, as part of our annual update cycle of all entries on the register, we have been working on updates including in Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire, Norfolk, County Durham and Tyne and Wear.

In Lincolnshire among the positive stories in this year's update are news of the completion of the restoration works at the venerable St Mary's Guildhall in Lincoln which traces its history back to John of Gaunt and Richard II and the progress of works at West Haven Maltings in Grimsby where work to create a new base for youth activities will "provide young people with a safe space where they can develop important life skills, gain confidence and have opportunities to try out new activities."  Due to open in 2025, this will be an interesting project to revisit to see the finished work in next year's update.

In Nottinghamshire, essential urgent works have finally been carried out on Old Haggs farmhouse, beloved of DH Lawrence. On the BaR since 2006, we understand that the roof has been patched and that new gutters have been installed after many years of stagnation. A group still want this house to be turned into an historic or literary site, which would be a wonderful outcome if a viable plan could be determined but it’s great to hear that remedial works have made it weathertight as we near winter.

In other positive news, two buildings in Mansfield have been incorporated into a RIBA competition-winning design for the redevelopment of the Church Street Quarter, having both been on the BaR for over ten years. 2 Dame Flogan Street and Former Mettham’s Mineral Water Works are retained in the winning designs by Proctor and Matthews, which will hopefully be completed by 2027. The competition brief specified that designs ought to factor in the retention and refurbishment of non-designated heritage assets, so fingers crossed that this represents a turning point in these buildings’ fortunes!

In a similar vein in Norfolk, the Winter Gardens in Great Yarmouth won the prize for ‘future reuse’ at the Architects’ Journal Retrofit & Reuse Awards last month. The scheme will renovate the grade II* listed building and create a ‘people’s palace’ which promises ‘net zero carbon in operation’. The site is due to reopen to the public in 2027, almost twenty years after its closure in 2008.

Salford visit

This month we had a fascinating trip around some of the buildings in Salford which are on our at risk register.   Thanks to Dr Joanne O'Hara, Heritage Commission Co-ordinator, Hannah Robinson-Smith, Salford's Heritage Champion and lead member for culture and heritage, and Paula Stebbings, Principal Conservation Officer, for arranging the tour and for briefing us on the background to the ongoing work on heritage regeneration in the city.  It was a valuable and educational tour.