STAFFING FOR CONSERVATION English Heritage (HBMC) arranged for a questionnaire on staffing arrangements to be sent out with the last issue (No 9) of CONTEXT. Information on particular . istricts was not the purpose of the exercise, but rather information nationally in connection with a study which is intended for publication. HBMC would like to thank those who completed and returned the short questionnaire - in all 45 were returned, including 10 Counties, 34 Districts and one National Park Authority. Whilst the results are useful, they are too few to be reliable. Conservation Officers who have not responded are therefore asked to do so as soon as possible, using the form enclosed with this issue of CONTEXT. Members may like to know some of the provisional findings. In those authorities that do have conservation staff, the numbers tend to be very limited: 2.3 per County and 1.8 per District. Most staff members were on Principal Officer/ Senior Officer grades (74% in Counties and 83% in Districts); others were on APT grades. But the PO/SO grades included a substantial proportion of parttime Conservation Officers. In terms of full-time equivalent, Counties have an average of 1.15 staff on PO/SO grades, and Districts have 0.7. Figures for London Boroughs and Metropolitan Districts indicate higher levels of staffing. Brian Hennessy ." HBMC 'A) ~t" ... ,, LORD ELTON SPEAKS The new Minister of State for the Environment, Lord Elton, addressed the Town and Country Planning Summer School on 13 September. His general theme was of the need to speed up and simplify the planning processes, although he recognised it was not such an easy task, "I merely say that Page 5 it is generally the case that 'decisions deferred equals costs incurred'." He went on to reiterate the erroneous assumption that somehow conservation and development are opposites rather than the fact that they go hand in hand. "What the planning system as a whole is designed to do", he said, "is to hold the balance between two vital aims. These aims are, broadly, those of development and those of conservation and that balance is essential to our national well being." "No policy that is designed to conserve everything from the past, without distinction and without priority, would give this country the remotest chance of achieving the economic strength, or indeed the social amenities that it has the right to expect. Equally no policy that is designed to give untrammelled access to land and resources to every economic (or civic) venture, regardless of any criteria, could fail to scar the fair face of England beyond any surgeon's healing touch." LORD GNOMESPEAKS 'Private Eye' reports in its conservation-conscious 'Nooks and Corners' column the following moneyspinning operation, which would be admirably suited to Conservation Officers wanting to earn some spare-time cash. I quote:·"A friend who lives in a listed building was surprised recently to receive a circular from Messrs. Listed Building Insignia of Ipswich, inviting,him to spend £50 on a framed 'Certificate of Listing' and £75 on a 'Green Plaque' to screw to his front wall announcing that his house is of Special Architectural and Historic Int~rest. This firm claims to have been granted a 'unique licence' by HMSO to print the listing descriptions, even though the Statutory List is freely available to the public anyway. Worse, however, than the fact that these Green Plaques will disfigure facades and exacerbate that unhappy separation between "Our Heritage" and real England, is that they are commended as "well-designed .. and would .. grace any building entitled to them", bv none other than Sir Hugh Cassoa.,. 11
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