38 C O N T E X T 1 3 8 : M A R C H 2 0 1 5 in Chester. These included archaeology; the Roman grid; the street hierarchy; street levels (and the Rows); density; building lines; and quality and craftsmanship. The council’s design aspirations were hampered by hurdles including client issues; design quality; a lack of pre-application consultation; changing design team personnel; historical advice gatekeepers; and pressures on conservation officers. The local development framework was in progress and Chester had its own design review panel. Rosemarie MacQueen of Westminster City Council spoke about protecting historic views.Westminster’s context included 1,100 listed buildings, conservation areas and a world heritage site. Most of Westminster was subject to heritage designation or was within the setting of a heritage asset. There were also sensitive environments: the river and canal frontages, and the Royal Parks. Tourism was an important contributor to the local economy but it was reliant on maintaining views. Hence the London Plan directed development towards opportunity areas. To understand the impact of development proposals on views it was important to carry out mapping exercises and 3D studies. Cross-boundary cooperation with adjacent boroughs was vital to enable joint working. John Hinchliffe of Hinchliffe Heritage spoke about world heritage sites and buffer zones. Liverpool’s world heritage site, inscribed in 2004 as the supreme example of a commercial port of the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries, was surrounded by a buffer zone. The Liverpool Waters proposal had prompted the Joint UNESCO/ ICOMOS Reactive Monitoring Mission visit (2011), which decided that the proposal would ‘visually modify the comprehensive morphology of the townscape’. TheWorld Heritage Committee pronounced that Liverpool Waters constituted a potential danger to the world heritage site and in 2012 inscribed Liverpool on the list of world heritage in danger. The application was referred to the secretary of state, who decided to allow Liverpool City Council to determine the application. The application was approved in 2013. UNESCO was concerned with the later stages of the proposal, which would not be constructed until the 2030s. So Liverpool was unlikely to lose its world heritage status imminently. English Heritage had been invited to work with the developers to promote development that sustained the outstanding universal value of the world heritage site. Two tours had been arranged: Liverpool world heritage site, led by John Hinchliffe, and Liverpool Biennial, led by Rosie Cooper. Afterwards the IHBC NW and RTPI conservation Award was presented to the Manchester Central Library project. Chris Mayes of English Heritage gave a presentation on setting and registered parks and gardens. In landscapes people exhibited learnt instinctive responses. Experiences were based on expectation, anticipation and surprise. Landscapes had associative, spatial and temporal dimensions, and this was how people read them. KimWilkie’s topic was the historic landscape and significance and change. Landscapes constantly changed, he said.What was important was how they were managed.Without management, change accelerated and was very radical. The Thames Landscape Strategy took a range of elements into consideration, including listed buildings and registered parks and gardens. The day’s major theme was the difference between setting and fixed views. Setting was something in which you experienced heritage, whereas views of or from heritage assets were only part of the setting, and setting itself contributed to the character of the asset. Keith Parsons, principal lecturer, University of Central Lancashire IHBC North West conference, Liverpool The setting of heritage assets David Rudlin of URBED gave a presentation on the importance of setting for heritage assets. It was easy to ignore context or see buildings in isolation, he said, so how could we design beautiful places? In Manchester’s Northern Quarter change had happened in an organic, incremental fashion. Cities were dynamic places, so conservation planning needed to avoid urban taxidermy. Richard Morrice of English Heritage spoke about setting in the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF), planning policy guidance and English Heritage good practice advice. Setting was the surroundings in which a heritage asset was experienced. The NPPF explained that its extent was not fixed, and it might change as the asset and its surroundings evolved. English Heritage good practice advice said that views of or from heritage assets were only part of the setting, and setting itself contributed to the character of an asset. Jonathan Edis of Heritage Collective spoke about wind farms in historic landscapes. The focus was often on visual impact. Single turbines were less visually intrusive, but was it better to cluster turbines? Cadw’s assessment process for landscapes of historic interest provided a grading system. In England, it would be difficult to protect non-designated assets. David Tomback of English Heritage spoke about issues of setting in enabling development. Such development was a way of addressing conservation deficit, but it did not guarantee viability. It was irrevocable and irreversible. It was a valid means of securing the future of heritage assets, but it was important that the asset suffered no material harm, and that the public benefits were sustainable and clearly outweighed any public harm. John Simons of Donald Insall Associates spoke about historic cities and setting, focusing on Chester. The Chester City Report (1966) had proposed employing a Gordon Cullen approach, grounded in analysis of the settings of historic buildings. The unitary authority of CheshireWest and Chester had established Chester Renaissance and had published the Chester One City Plan (2011). A number of issues needed to be considered when developing proposals Chester: the council’s design aspirations are hampered by the pressures on conservation officers.
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