Historic Towns and Cities

Hugh Bayley Excerpts

Tuesday 19th October 2010 Westminster Hall

[Hugh Bayley (York Central) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Eric Ollerenshaw) on securing this important debate. I listened with care to what he said.

Striking a balance between preserving heritage and generating jobs for people in the present day is important. However, I do not take the view that heritage is an obstacle to development. If I look at my own constituency, the city of York, I see the valuable built heritage as an enormous economic asset.

York is especially rich in built heritage. The Multangular tower is, I think, the only extant Roman building in Britain that still rises 10 metres above the ground. The minster and city walls were mentioned by the hon. Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood. York has mediaeval streets such as Shambles and Georgian streets such as St Leonard’s place, as well as Victorian architecture. Great museums, such as the National Railway museum, the Jorvik Viking centre, the Castle museum and the Yorkshire museum, and the race course all attract visitors to York in their millions. In the last year for which I have figures, 2008, 7.1 million tourists visited York—2009 figures will be out soon—and they spent £450 million in the city, creating thousands of jobs for local people.

Those historic assets, when combined with extremely good schools, two excellent universities and York college, in a brand-new building, have made the city of York a magnet for investment. There are new industries such as those based on bioscience, which have grown out of expertise at the university of York campus. Engineering, which still employs thousands of people in York, draws on the city’s long railway heritage, and there are, as I mentioned, thousands of jobs in tourism and retail.

The York economy performs particularly well. Almost 80% of the working-age population in York is in employment, compared with less than 75% nationally. Only 6.8% of people in the city of York have no qualifications at all, compared with more than 12% nationally. More than a third of the population in York—36%—have a national vocational qualification of level 4 or above, compared with only 29% nationally. Only 4% of young people in York are not in education, employment or training, compared with some 14% nationally.

In terms of business growth, York again does well. Between 2000 and last year, the number of businesses in York grew from 4,645 to 5,820. No one could possibly say that York’s exceptionally rich heritage is an obstacle to economic activity or development. In fact, it is an asset.

There is a citizen-led campaign in York for the city to gain UNESCO world heritage status, which I support. There is no evidence that Edinburgh castle and the Royal Mile have suffered as a result of the city obtaining UNESCO world heritage status. I hope that the York bid will get support from York city council and from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. It would in no way interfere with development, because York and its planning authorities have to safeguard the heritage whether or not we have UNESCO world heritage status.

When the developers were digging the foundations of the Coppergate site 30 years ago, they uncovered Viking Jorvik. Far from demanding money from the Government to dig the site, the York Archaelogical Trust made the dig a commercial success, in the same way in which the Jorvik museum is now a commercial asset to York as well as an important guardian of the city’s rich historical heritage. The site draws visitors to the Coppergate area, which is a shopping centre as well, so it is good for business, too. The same is happening in Hungate. The Archaeological Trust is currently digging the site in a way that is compatible with development.

York’s historic assets, such as the minster and the National Railway Museum, are treasures of national and international importance. As such, they need support from national Government. I welcome the decisions that were taken in the Government’s quango cull this week not to get rid of the independent status of the National Railway Museum and, particularly, not to merge English Heritage and the Heritage Lottery Fund, which are two bodies with separate roles. English Heritage has a regulatory role and makes grants available from public funds, whereas the Heritage Lottery Fund makes grants available from lottery receipts, and we need both bodies. I warmly welcome confirmation of the Heritage Lottery Fund’s grant of £9.7 million towards the restoration of York minster’s great east window, which is the largest mediaeval work of art anywhere in the world. It is a Yorkshire icon and has been for centuries. It will cost some £25 million to restore, and our generation must not fail to maintain an international treasure with the status of York minster.

Yorkshire Forward had promised two substantial grants to heritage bodies in York. Some £5 million had been pledged towards the cost of re-displaying the exhibition in the National Railway Museum’s great hall—which has not been re-displayed since the museum was first built—and £1 million was to go towards restoring the minster’s great east window. As a result of the Government’s decision to abolish regional development agencies, those grants were withdrawn. Although I do not want to get into an argument now about the benefits of regional development agencies today, I do want to say to the Minister that if a vehicle for distributing resources to generate employment is going to change, which it is, it is important that the new mechanisms recognise the importance of heritage as a generator of employment, and that there are times when grants need to be made to support heritage because of the economic and employment consequences of so doing.

I know that we live in straitened economic times, but there is much that the Government can do to support the valuable heritage of historic towns and cities such as York that does not necessarily cost a fortune. Sir Ron Cooke, a former vice-chancellor of the university of York and a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, recently wrote the interesting document, “Downtown York: a practical manifesto”. Although I do not expect the Minister to read it because I know that mountains of paper go across ministerial desks, I commend it both to his officials and to officials in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. There are some big ticket items such as major economic developments to which the Government would have to make a contribution. The York central site, for instance, is a large one—it is probably two thirds of the size of the area within York’s city walls—behind York station, bounded by railway lines with difficult access. It is a huge development site adjacent to the city walls, which provides enormous opportunities for York’s continued economic development. Without some Government funding for access roads, for instance, that development will not take place.

In his paper, Sir Ron Cooke says:

“York’s inner-city streetscape, its ambience and public realm, are unique and spectacular resources that are fundamental to the city’s present and future prosperity. They are amongst the city’s special selling points, not just for visitors, but also for residents, entrepreneurs, investors, job creators, employees on the move, and students.”

He says that those streets are the stage on which everyone plays. He makes the point that through planning decisions, we sometimes undermine or wreck that very special ambience. In the 1960s for example, some concrete and glass buildings—thankfully, only a few—were built in the centre of York. We recently gave permission for a rail engineering firm to build a block that overshadows the city walls. Those planning mistakes should not be repeated, as they undermine what is special about York and what draws investment to York.

Sir Ron Cooke also mentions signage. We litter everywhere with street signs. Sometimes, a big illuminated concrete or stainless steel monstrosity is erected in the wrong place. There is one such sign at the end of Shambles, which is the prettiest mediaeval street anywhere in Britain. The signs can be taken down; they are not needed. The streets of York were not built for motor cars, and most of them are pedestrianised anyway, so cars do not go up and down them. If a bollard is really needed, we could put up something appropriate that is made of cast iron rather than concrete. Such things do not cost a fortune. We could set up a committee to plan in a different way. Given that York and other historic cities are such valuable places for running businesses, developers tend to want erect buildings that are in keeping with the surroundings.

I know that many other hon. Members want to speak, so I will conclude. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood for obtaining this debate and giving me the opportunity to say a few words.