CONTEXT 186 : DECEMBER 2025 33 INFRASTRUCTURE street name, not an industrial and geographic area as it once did. From a heritage perspective, the legislation that protects a conservation area sets out the intentions of how it should be treated. It respects the group value and the special character that gave rise to the designation in the first place. It reassures the public that their neighbourhood has significance in the development and history of that area, setting out what made it important in times gone by. This can often be a source of local pride and unite the inhabitants through a shared history that many of their predecessors shaped. But the biggest issue with protecting a conservation area is that change is not enforceable. Unlike with listed buildings, where an enforcement notice could be issued and the changes would have to be returned to the original, in a conservation area there is not such provision. Demolition needs consent but there is no threat of prosecution if this is not adhered to, and in recent times applications for consent have been relaxed to be included in the planning application for the overall development of the site. Local planning authorities tell us that conservation area designations are awarded to protect against over-development, but this has now become a point of interpretation. If interpretation means assessment for heritage value, this favours the asset, because conservation areas are intended to be appreciated for their contribution to our built heritage as a collection of evidence from past development. In fact what is being interpreted is how many residential units are acceptable on sites that have never provided accommodation in the past. The heritage of the area has nothing to do with this – and because so many assessments are high-level, desk-based research, there is not even a site visit to provide context. The industrial past has left buildings that in many areas have stood empty for decades. Battersea Power Station is one such example. The Thames embankments are included in conservation areas that bound the river and meet their neighbouring boroughs down the centre of the water. There is an intention that these designations will protect against over-development. This phrase is included in the conservation area appraisal of my local conservation area, Sand’s End. That prompted my renewed interest, because only three buildings of note survive in Sand’s End. Its conservation area appraisal is also obsolete; it neither shows any of the modern additions to the conservation area nor describes how they protect the character or contribute to the group value – because they do not. It is impossible to tell that this area has an industrial past from three buildings; they have no relationship to each other and provide no context for the past development of the area. Adjacent to Sand’s End Conservation Area, Imperial Square has two terraces of workers’ cottages and a Grade II* gasolier – surrounded by modern residential towers. Beyond that is Lots Village, with a power station and chimneys, now dwarfed by a residential tower of about 30 storeys on a bend of the river, and further east again is the Thames Embankment. To the west is Hurlingham Conservation Area, another collection of wharves, with a park created for the workers in the area, so from Chelsea Bridge to Putney Bridge, the north side of the Thames is a consecutive stretch of conservation areas. Yet the level of development on this stretch of the river, as in the east end, has no relationship with the industrial past. The height of river and canalside buildings was determined by their need to load barges from their gantries. This is part of the character of our industrial heritage – the transportation of A ‘building of note’ in Lots Village Conservation Area. Known now as the Powerhouse and adapted into residential units, this used to be London Transport’s power station. The view out of Imperial Square Conservation Area with Lots Village Conservation Area as the background. These conservation areas form a consecutive border to the River Thames in Chelsea and Fulham, indicating the level of industrialisation in this area from 1820s to 1990s.
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