Heritage Sites (Halesowen)

Debate between James Morris and John Penrose

Tuesday 23rd November 2010 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport (John Penrose)]

Let me echo the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Halesowen and Rowley Regis (James Morris) by saying that this is my first opportunity to serve under you on one of these occasions, Mr Rosindell, and I am sure that it will be a pleasure. I saw you running the previous debate with military efficiency, so I am sure that we will make good progress in this one, too.

I congratulate my hon. Friend on gaining this debate and on setting out his case so clearly. He has made it clear to everybody here that Halesowen has elected a doughty champion for local people, who is willing to fight for local issues and to take them right the way to debates in the Houses of Parliament, when necessary. Heritage is not everybody’s cup of tea, but my hon. Friend has shown that he is willing to engage with issues right across the breadth of political discourse, and I congratulate him.

I will endeavour to respond to my hon. Friend’s points one by one in order, because he asked some quite specific questions. Before I begin that detailed response, however, I should say that if my hon. Friend hears anything in my response that, on further reflection and after discussion with local constituents, he wants to come back to me on, I am of course at his disposal. He can write to me, or we can have a conversation, if there are any points to follow up after the debate.

It might be helpful if I give a small amount of background about the site. My hon. Friend rightly said that it is quite a complicated site. On frequent occasions, it has been quite messy, and all sorts of different layers of usage have built up during its long history. Most recently, it has been quite a hard-working agricultural area, so the site has been used as a farmyard and a working area for quite some time. He is therefore right that the site has been messy, but he will understand that although everyone would obviously like all parts of the country to be beautiful, gorgeous and well maintained, the important issue from the point of view of English Heritage and the Government is whether the heritage has been damaged for future generations and whether the public has access, albeit messy access. Those are the crucial points that he is driving at, and I shall try to confine my remarks to the thrust of his questions.

My hon. Friend asked some quite specific questions about the controls that English Heritage may or may not exercise with regard to the development process. As he said, the local authority, in its planning authority role, gave permission just yesterday for the proposed developments to go ahead. He is absolutely right that English Heritage will expect to maintain quite close scrutiny of the development process for a monument of this importance and seniority to make sure that it is not harmed and that the development goes as planned and does not depart from the original plans.

Where such developments take place, the requirements are very specific to each individual site, so I shall ask English Heritage to write my hon. Friend a letter detailing precisely how it plans to engage with the development process in this case. If I describe generalities, that might not necessarily do the trick for this specific site, which will have its own idiosyncrasies. However, if I ask English Heritage to write to my hon. Friend to lay out precisely how it plans to engage with this process, he will have something in black and white, and he will be able to check whether it is being done. Equally, constituents and the Halesowen Abbey Trust will know what to expect from English Heritage, so that they can make sure that the development process is being conducted sympathetically and in a controlled fashion. I am sure that my hon. Friend, his constituents and I would all agree that that will be essential over the coming weeks and months as the development process moves forward.

My hon. Friend asked whether the Government believe that a significant change to an historic site, such as the conversion of nearby outbuildings for residential use, represented a material deterioration, conservation or an enhancement to the site in question. That is a tremendously important question generally and in the specific case of this site. It is undoubtedly true that any change or development can constitute a risk to a site of heritage importance. However, it is also true that sympathetic development, when done correctly, can be the saving of an awful lot of such sites. In general, English Heritage, other heritage bodies up and down the country and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport have found that it is far better to have a sympathetic site owner or manager, and a site that is in continuous use with a sustainable use going forward. That is simply because it then has a continuing purpose and is likely to be invested in as necessary, to ensure that the new and historical structures are well maintained.

[James Morris]

I totally understand the point that my hon. Friend makes, but in this case there has been a lot of evidence over a long time of a lack of confidence on the part of the local community and, in particular, the Halesowen Abbey Trust, in the will to make the necessary changes and ensure that, where there is controlled development, it is done in a way that is suitable for the site and preserves its potential archaeological interest.

[John Penrose]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. As I understand it, the plans that have just been approved were originally developed a couple of years ago, starting in 2008, in full consultation with English Heritage. It had extensive input into those plans and has indicated that it is comfortable with how the plans will treat the monument and the listed remains.

Of course, the question is not just whether the plans are sympathetically drawn up, and whether the intention is to use sensible materials that will frame the heritage parts of the site in an impressive and academically acceptable way, but whether those plans will genuinely be delivered, as the development process goes through. I take my hon. Friend’s point on that.

I shall come on to answer some of his questions about developments to the site that were made without planning permission and that needed retrospective planning permission. I hope that my answer to my hon. Friend’s question about controls over the development process and how English Heritage is planning to engage with those—and the fact that I am going to ask English Heritage to write to him with a list of how it is going to do that—will help to address both his concerns and those of local people. In the unlikely event that English Heritage does not live up to what it plans to do on that site during the development process, I am sure that he and the trust will be on its case and will contact me as necessary to ensure that there is no slippage or backsliding.

To pick up on the final point I was making in answer to the last question, it is better to have a living building that is being used in a sustainable fashion, provided that that is done sympathetically to the heritage asset concerned, than something that is unused and not cared for, that does not attract investment, and that is therefore unlikely to be maintained. That is something that we find across the country.

Last week I was lucky enough to visit some of the new developments taking place by King’s Cross station in north London, where a number of listed buildings are being incorporated into some stunning modern architecture. There is a wonderful juxtaposition of old and new; it is being done very carefully with a great deal of respect for the heritage assets. The future of those heritage assets will be hugely improved as a result of being brought back into use in a modern way. I hope that is a clear answer to my hon. Friend’s original question.

My hon. Friend asked whether the Government would support a decision by English Heritage not to prosecute the owner of an historic site for breaking the law, on the basis that it wanted to avoid upsetting the owner. He mentioned the case of the flood wall, but I understand that there have been other, smaller cases, too. I understand that English Heritage did consider prosecution and took the case to the Crown Prosecution Service, which indicated it would not be prepared to take forward the prosecution of Mr Tudor for the unauthorised works. That is not to say that it is never right to prosecute. In fact, English Heritage has prosecuted in the past, though not frequently because the cost is very high and, technically, achieving a positive result in court in these cases is hard. However, it has happened, and successfully. I do not think that there is any theoretical or practical obstacle to doing so, but it happens rarely.

Given that the CPS said it was reluctant to take the case forward because it felt that there was a low probability of success, I think English Heritage’s approach of saying that it needed to work constructively with the owner was probably the best opportunity in that specific option. That does not mean that it should not come down hard on examples of bad behaviour. On occasions, it is necessary, as the French said of the English Navy, to hang an admiral pour encourager les autres. It is important to make it clear that there is a line in the sand beyond which people should not go. The principle is clear and is as my hon. Friend describes.

My hon. Friend’s final question was whether we should introduce an independent review to check on the ability of English Heritage to uphold laws and regulations. I think that English Heritage is held in pretty high regard across the wider heritage community, if I can put it that way, although obviously no organisation is perfect. A lot of people, including within English Heritage, would say that they wanted it to improve in a number of ways. However, English Heritage, among others, also agrees that in the wake of the comprehensive spending review, like any other part of the public sector, it has to do more with less. At the moment it is busy re-organising in order to become more efficient and is cutting its cloth to fit, in the same way that everybody else has to. It is not pleasant or fun, but it has to make do, and is doing so professionally.

It is clear that, once the dust has settled, English Heritage will have to look at some of its current processes—for example, the listings process—to work out how to perform those statutory tasks in a way that is more efficient, faster and cheaper, while at the same time ensuring that it provides the important protection of heritage assets that my hon. Friend and I have been debating.

[James Morris]

Again, I understand the point that my hon. Friend makes. Will he emphasise to English Heritage the importance of sites in areas such as Halesowen? If one mentions Halesowen heritage outside of Halesowen, people do not realise the rich tapestry of culture and heritage that there is there and in other areas of the black country. English Heritage should prioritise and give thought to the importance of monuments in places that are not typically thought of as traditional areas of English heritage.

[John Penrose]

I am happy to do so. My hon. Friend has touched on an important point, because heritage assets are wrongly viewed as a crumbling piece of an awkward obstacle to development. In most communities, they are rightly seen as huge assets from which the community can benefit. They make each community distinct and different, and keep us in touch with our local past. In many cases they are great sources of tourism income, too. I agree completely that there are a lot of opportunities there.

To conclude, English Heritage knows that it has to react to the recent comprehensive spending review by becoming more efficient, in the same way as many other bodies in the public sector. It is starting that remodelling, and I expect it to go a great deal further over the next months. I hope it will do so in a way that will please my hon. Friend. In the meantime, I will ask it to write to him with the details of how it proposes to protect this site.