C O N T E X T 1 2 4 : M A Y 2 0 1 2 43 the NPPF suggests that conservation is ‘… managing change to a heritage asset in a way that sustains and… enhances its significance’. Significance, it goes on to say, is the ‘value of heritage interest’. By that logic, supported by a no less substantial misrepresentation of conservation skills, adaptation is no longer a core benefit for the survival of what we value in heritage – significance. It is this narrow line that has moved centre-stage in the HMRC’s pitch: appropriate development is not core to the management of ‘significance’, so tax relief is no longer appropriate. HMRC has uncovered the ‘reductio ad absurdum’ of significance in conservation. Benefiting heritage through VAT relief might be a plan that in some universes could actually underpin conservation, even as the management of significance. The opening paragraph of the NPPF on conservation, for example, might be used in its support. Local planning authorities are required to ‘set out in their local plan a positive strategy for the conservation and enjoyment of the historic environment’. Not for HMRCworld: here the new tax-take undermines local authority statutory obligations. In this absurd world of the HMRC, ‘Alteration work on other [nondesignated] types of building is standardrated so owners of listed buildings receive a tax advantage over owners of other types of building’. This is bad news, suggests HMRC – presumably because anyone with a listed building should simply savour being responsible for an ‘irreplaceable resource’ in which, the NPPF says, future generations have as much interest as the owner. As new build is VAT exempt, it must be (by HMRC’s logic) excluded from ‘other types of building’ referred to in the argument. Clearly there are other types, and then there are ‘other types’. On top of all that, zero-rating is removed for buildings reconstructed with more than 60 per cent new work – never a great thing, but better than the ‘nothing’ now proffered. But relief is ‘retained for buildings reconstructed from a shell’. The rationale for promoting facade retention over conservation is that it puts ‘listed buildings in a similar position to new buildings’ – about the only time they receive such a nod. So in HMRC-world, harm to heritage that is ‘substantial’ (as the NPPF might have it) receives VAT relief (shell building), at the same time as relief is withdrawn when 40 per cent of the historic fabric is retained. The overarching absurdity is that the anomalies try to address the problem that ‘works of repair and maintenance to protected buildings are standard-rated for VAT purposes’ while ‘approved alterations’ are zerorated. Rather than having regard to the substantial case, and to calls for relief on the repair and maintenance in addition to that given on extensions, HMRC has wilfully entrenched further the favouring of new work. Ignoring that fact that new work, properly managed, should lie at the heart of how we manage our built resources, once again the private interests in new build gain tax relief while the public interest in heritage loses out. On this skim through the Kafkaesque logic of HMRC’s absurdities, it might seem at first that the test for ‘humanity’ used in Isihguro’s fantasy world might also be tried out in the HMRC: analysing the art of its inhabitants to see if they might have a soul. However, it is not that simple, for there is another absurdity in the air that generates that love affair between government and new build: the concept of gross domestic product (GDP). As a practicing conservation professional, bound by the IHBC’s own aspirations to make sure that the first thing we should be clear about is what we do not know, I freely confess my limited, indeed paltry, knowledge of this area. So, in proper fashion, I shall collate the work of others on GDP that reveals it as one of the major obstacles to intelligent life in government policy. Seán O’Reilly, director@ihbc.org.uk Welcome to new members The following members were voted in at the March 2012 council meeting.Welcome to you all. Full members Josie Murray (SE) Marc Beattie (SC) Upgrades from affiliates to full members Crispin Edwards (NW) Elaine Artherton (WM) James Weir (SE) Sally Brownlow (EA) Tom Street (EM) Affiliate members David Allam (SO) Michael Almond (SE) Graham Ash (SO) Lauren Ayers (SO) Helen Bailey (NW) Keith Berry (SE) Ian Bird (WM) Chris Bowers (LO) Rebecca Burrows (EM) Sally Childes (NO) Peter Cross (SE) Katherine Denman (SW) Stephen Dickson (SC) Dylan Evans (NW) Katherine Falconer Hall (LO) Viorica Feler-Morgan (LO) Craig Field (SC) Anna Foreshew (LO) Annabel Green (LO) Alan Hardwick (EM) Lee Harper (SW) Peter Hayes (EA) Carolyn Hayward (EA) Jack Haw (NW) Sibylle Heil (LO) Michael Hornsby (SO) Kate Jordan (SE) Sarah Khan (LO) Diana King (SW) Vladimir Ladinski (NO) Eleanor Lakew (LO) Rachael Lamb (EA) Michael Leigh (YO) Grant Lock (LO) Keith Loveless (SW) Andrew Mason (SO) Dawn McDowell (SC) Charles Meyer (NW) Andrew Rayner (LO) Andy Richardson (SE) Fiona Russek (EA) Antony Sargent (EM) Tanya Szendeffy (LO) David Taylor (LO) Diane Vaughton (NW) StephenWaite (OV) IanWright (EM) Associate members Jonathan Monteith (SW) Robert Shadbolt (SO)
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjgyMjA=