C O N T E X T 1 3 8 : M A R C H 2 0 1 5 43 Notes from the chair Radical change is being forced on us by default A common management saw that I hear these days is that ‘We must do more with less’.While the drive for ever-greater efficiency is commendable, particularly in these straitened times, there must be a logical limit to this exhortation. If we are already at maximum efficiency (and any employed conservation professional will tell you that we reached that point many years ago), to demand more without further resources simply means that other stuff – no doubt a ‘lower priority’ – simply does not get done. The meeting explaining in detail to a client the issues that will need to be addressed in order to progress their project; the patient phone call to the applicant explaining to them how the planning system works and how their proposal will be processed; the site visit inspecting the works and advising on a particular conservation technique; the site visit at all. Thus has conservation-in-depth been lost – and much public confidence in the system at the same time. Indeed, as we have become more and more digitally savvy, what are we losing? I’m sure we are all thankful to Google Earth and Bing for the thousands of miles of travelling they save, but do we really know what is happening on the ground with the nation’s listed buildings and other assets? A recent emailed exchange I caught between conservation professionals would suggest that far too much work is being done illicitly under the radar by ignorant or unscrupulous owners and builders. Internal features missing. PVCu windows inserted. Gypsum instead of lime plaster. All carried out with confidence that they will not be discovered – or, if they are, that the local conservation officer will be too stretched to do much about it. Recently I came across an east-end shopkeeper who, unknown to the local authority, had taken it upon himself to cover over the rare and delightful lateVictorian glazed wall tiling and Minton floor (which were the basis of the listing of his shop). His chosen method? He nailed timber studs to the tiled walls, and plaster-boarded and skimmed interior (on CAMRA’s National Inventory) closed it and boarded it up. Then, mysteriously, the asphalt roof fails, the pipes from the water tanks self-uncouple and the whole interior is flooded, ruining the panelling and much of the plasterwork. The application for its conversion into a convenience supermarket, including removing two of the four bars, is submitted but refused. Subsequently, it is discovered that the bars have been ripped out anyway. The nominated director refuses to attend an interview under caution. The enforcement team are still awaiting their redundancy. Perhaps this is just London, parts of which appear to be on the verge of anarchy, such is the lust for money. But I hear similar tales of woe up and down them, and he simply cement-screeded over the floor. The loss is permanent. It would cost thousands to replicate and replace the damaged tiles (which, of course, the shopkeeper could never afford). In the period between his interview under caution and the time of writing, the whole local authority enforcement team has been informed that their jobs have been cut under a budget-led restructuring of the planning department. Oh, and so has the conservation officer post. It is no longer a priority to the new administration, apparently. I am told that that will bring the number of London authorities without any conservation capacity up to five; this in a supposed ‘world city’. So it goes on. The developers who bought a pub listed for its fine 1930s
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