10 very few people would have thought we would be listing Victorian gasometers or public houses or engine-sheds. Being part of history, we are continually adjusting our own perception of the past. Very rapidly, people have come to cherish the vernacular: the little classical cornice or gable, the hitching post, Victorian alleyway or shop sign, the fine individual pointing on a Georgian window-head. In the future our focus will adjust in other ways. Perhaps we shall cherish the supermarket checkout, just as we are now enchanted by the vintage car or the 1920s typewriter. At all events, English Heritage has broadened out in many of these directions since 1984. Some trends we have anticipated, others we have been persuaded of. We produced the first Register of Historic Gardens as a vital planning tool. We shall shortly be doing something very similar for battlefields and historic countrysides. Several times we have made strong recommendations to the government over listing post-war buildings. In this respect and others, I believe we are ahead of government thinking - which after all is our job. We have some opponents, certainly, but many more friends and allies. Our mission in life, the reason we were created, was explicitly not to please everyone but to fight the corner for conservation. I have had many years in the heritage business but I freely confess that when I first became Chairman of English Heritage I had little idea just how complex, qow many-sided and how expert a task it does. It took time to appreciate the scholarship and dedication of so many committed people working to preserve the things they value. I have grown with the organisation. It has certainly become a major force to be reckoned with, yet one of the things I have realised increasingly is that it does not function like a self-contained force. At best it is the leader of a very broad alliance of conservation interest and it depends on them to do its job, every bit as much as it depends on government funding. We cannot do without each other - a theme I made clear at a conference of Conservation Officers early on in my term of office. There are few things more satisfying than presiding over an organisation which is doing a vitally necessary task, doing it well and gaining acknowledgement and respect for that, even from its opponents. Whatever our setbacks, I have no hesitation in saying that these last eight years have been the most important and rewarding in my public life. Lord Montagu of Beaulieu was chairman of English Heritage from itsformation in 1984 to 1992. Editor's note: This article was written prior to the recent announcement of the proposals to restructure Properties in Care etc. Mary King leaps to the defence of the Conservation Area ideal. LETSHEARIT FOR THE CONSERVATION AREA No one can ever leave a good thing alone. They have to tinker with it. Think of Coca Cola and Mars bars (who needs a bigger Mars bar, I ask you?). You know the way it goes: questionnaires, consultations, committees. You start with a perfectly good horse and end up with a camel. Conservation Area legislation was one of those rare miraculous things: the simple answer that actually answered the complex question. After 25 years, the designation of 7,000 Conservation Areas (and there is not an authoriry without one) suggests it must be answering a need, but it isn't without its critics. Some want to curtail the powers to designate Conservation Areas (in particular wresting control over designation from local authorities), while others wish to strengthen the controls within the designated areas and the local authorities' powers within them. Already I can see the camel emerging from the verbiage. The compromise which seems to be emerging is to have fewer Conservation Areas, more tightly drawn and much more difficult to designate, but with stringent controls when y;ou do get them and all with a neat plan for enhancement. Sounds fine? Sounds disastrous! The whole point of the original Conservation Area concept was not to throttle areas, but encourage everyone, even the highway engineer, to recognise their quality as living, evolving places, and target positive effort and resources of all kinds into them. They were not and are not 'no go' areas. Special: yes; worth preserving or enhancing: yes; but not ro be nailed to the floor. I see no good reason why designation of Conservation Areas should be taken from local authorities. There is no evidence that they have generally used the powers irresponsibly and, while it may not be a requirement of the legislation, I know of no authority which allows designation without a Council committee approval (although I will no doubt now be told of some). Most local authorities already link designation to the local plan process and the current position on 'plan led' planning has adequate checks if any are needed. There are already powers to challenge authorities but as far as I know a designation has only been challenged once suggesting there isn't a serious problem. It is, of course, being suggested that local authorities are designating too many areas and that, far from designations falling off, they are increasing, the implication being that this must be stopped or we will reach saturation point. Actually, the recent increase in designations is mostly due to the surge in plan-making currently underway, and will subside as plans become approved. Obviously the designation of too many areas would devalue them, but local authorities are well aware of this, and even more aware of the limited resources they can make available for conservation work. Conservation Areas are not being designated 'willy nilly' as some critics would have you believe. Examples of' rogue' designations are rare and tend not to be contagious! It is not just the number of areas that critics would like to see reduced of course, but their size. But it was part of the original concept of Conservation Areas that the spaces between and around the buildings contributed to the character of the area. I would agree that there could arguably be a distinction between open spaces which provide a setting for buildings within an area, and are thus a part of the character of that area, and open spaces which form a setting for the Conservation Area as a whole and perhaps should not be included in it - but each case would have to be considered on its merits. Overall, I don't recognise any need for a radical overhaul of the system for designation: it seems a good workable ., CONTEXT 36 t I
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