Architecture and the Built Environment

Earl of Lytton Excerpts

Monday 28th July 2014 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Lytton (CB)]

My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, for giving us this opportunity, and of course to Sir Terry and his team for an excellent piece of work.

My interests as a chartered surveyor and my links with the parish and town council movement, and therefore with localism, are well known. I like the suggestion of working better with what we have rather than always trying to invent something new. That applies to the way in which central government, departments and local authorities run their affairs and in which the professions respond, as well as to the philosophy of building reuse as opposed to endless redevelopment, referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Cormack.

A sense of place is as old as human settled habitation. Yet the report rightly points out how poorly we educate ourselves on the practical implications of this. It is not just about professions and procurers being ignorant of the principles of design, but also—to blow my own trumpet a bit—about being insufficiently apprised of concepts of valuation, in whole life economic and energy-accounting terms. Who can blame municipal planning officers or their councillors for not reflecting these when the process of training that I went through and regarded as holistic has now become modular and fragmented, with endless post-qualification accreditation now required? We risk incoherence and linguistic silos worthy of the Tower of Babel.

Modern buildings and layouts often have too little of that slack in design that made old mill buildings capable of being re-engineered into quality homes and wharfsides into modern business centres. I would like to comment particularly on the question posed in the review as to why good design is not better reflected in property valuation. I am a property valuer. The same question has often been asked about energy-efficient environments and was asked of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Excellence in the Built Environment also. As a valuer I understand where location, design and market sentiment coincide. Values reflect these elements but not immediately or in prospect.

Property valuation, especially for secured lending purposes, is heavily regulated. It necessarily follows market evidence and extrapolates from that to arrive at opinions. As such, its basis is inherently dated. It is both extremely unwise and professionally improper to speculate forwards in valuation. There are heavy liabilities for getting it wrong, due partly to the stance of lenders and partly to the legal arts of allocating risks and responsibilities. So projects without evidence of future market effect frequently get a raw deal.

Tenants may not be as choosy as one might hope, and landlord investors may be more interested in returns and bank covenants than in build design, quality and cost of occupation, sad though that may be. It is in only the private owner-occupied sector that you find the maximum synergy, and even then not always. However, tenants and investors make markets, and if they do not value excellence in design and efficiency, it is difficult for valuers, who strive to interpret their actions, to do so—even if their estate agency colleagues can afford to be rather more bullish.