C O N T E X T 1 3 1 : S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 3 19 S IHBC Annual School Annual School 2012 School 2013 IHBC An 2011 IHBC Annual IHBC Annual School School 2013 IHBC IHBC Annual Scho Interspersed throughout Grundy’s talk were personal anecdotes of life in Carlisle in the 1950s and 1960s, including scurrilous hints of clashes over women and pubs with Trefor Thorpe, almost certainly completely unfounded. Grundy’s enthusiasm for all things historic seems to have started in Carlisle Museum, then famous for being all ‘stuffed birds and little bits of stone from the Romans’. Carlisle Castle, despite Henry VIII’s removal of the battlements, clearly also had an early influence and remains, in Grundy’s eyes at least, one of Carlisle’s key attractions. The presentation ended with very long applause from the appreciative audience. Chezel Bird IHBC Day School Legislation and policy Mike Brown, a consultant heritage and urban design advisor, recently appointed as the new chair of the IHBC, was previously the IHBC’s policy secretary. He began his presentation by reviewing the past five years and alluding to the impact that the recession and austerity had had on the IHBC and the sector as a whole (see ‘Notes from the chair’, page 29). However, the main aim of his talk was to illustrate how current built heritage legislation and policy had been reformed across the UK. Brown noted that at the heart of the government’s planning reforms lay the ‘presumption in favour of sustainable development’ – a policy that had been regarded as a boon to developers because the council would become responsible for demonstrating that a proposed development was inappropriate. Brown worryingly pointed out that the onus would be put on the private sector with regards skills and training. We can assume that the private sector has been afforded an environment to invest in and make competitive returns while, apart from the most conscientious, developers can continue their recent trend of advocating and educating built environment stakeholders in the benefits of modern construction practice to the detriment of the heritage sector. The result will be a vicious circle of despair: poor specification, poor workmanship, poor aftercare and subsequent lack of maintenance. This would be contrary to the objectives of national, regional and local planning policy. The heritage sector was at the edge of a precipice, Brown said: ‘a modern-world legislative system but with third-world resources’. Scott McGibbon Mike Brown(left), Rory Cullen, David McDonald and Nick Randell consider a question raised by John Preston (right) John Grundy at the Tullie House Museum
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