planning and building control at district level and between planning and highways at county level. Conservation is a team job; the aim should be to improve visual literacy wherever possible rather than retain a narrow specialism. Finally a deliberately provocative closing remark: is the fact that we have to give special protection to historic areas a reflection on the planning system? Shouldn 1t the system be able to look after 11special 11 areas without a separate code? Does more attention to Conservation Areas result in less :attention to other areas? "Enhance the best, improve the rest 11 should be the motto. Conservation shouldn't be twodimensional in their approach, but be prepared to involve other disciplines and professions in a co-operative attempt to improve the whole environment. The question session, following these exhortations to local authority conservation staff, brought in return some equally direct suggestions for the Civic Trust. One suggestion was that the Civic Trust should invite subscriptions -it could retain its 11professional amateurism" while tapping the huge reserves of goodwill in local amenity societies. Peter Robshaw fielded this by replying that the Trust is in fact about to appoint a fund raiser. Another speaker expressed the opinion that a national body is definitely needed to bring in all those people who don't currently have or support a local amenity society. The huge membership figures of the National Trust and the RSPB were quoted as indicators of the likely market to be tapped. Peter Robshaw was doubtful however whether support on this scale would be forthcoming; he didn't have "something to sell 11 in such an easily definable way as these other national bodies. The question of Listed Building Consent statistics again reared its head. No the Civic Trust doesn't compile any ' statistics; but Peter Robshaw doubted whether such statistics would do any more than indicate a general trend and that its case should not depend on' statistical arguments. The point was pressed, however, from the audience, that there would be a value in accounting the increase in LBCs when all the new lists have been published; we lag behind all other European countries in using LB statistics as a forward planning tool. Peter Robshaw agreed that there was an element of optimism in the Government's professing to give greater freedom to local authorities while handing them greater responsibilities without increased resources. Returning to the subject of more stringent use 0f available controls, one questioner thought that in areas of high unemployment, imposing too high a standard of control over development could jeopardise the existence of new schemes - developers would simply look elsewhere. In reply Peter stressed the importance of demonstrating that conservation is an economically viable option; it can be commer -cially respectable, and there is more hope in making it so than in using ratepayers' money to prop up buildings with no economic use. DAYTHREE: IMPLEMENTATIONOF CONSERVATIONLEGISLATION: GEORGEALI.AN George Allan is a solicitor who is also Chairman of the Kent Building Preservation Trust and has been involved in a number of cases in which owners have been pursued through the courts as a result of neglect of historic buildings. His illustrated case histories confirmed his theme that implementation of the available conservation legislation in the Town and Country Planning Acts is dif+'icult because of (a) lack of inter-departmental liaison between authorities, (b) lack of supportive policy from councillors and (c) lack of manpower or expertise in local authorities to pursue preservation policy with the appropriate finesse. • While some of the shortcomings of existing planning law were familiar, (for example the lack of any powers to force owners to take proper precautions against fire), Mr. Allan provided an invaluable service by drawing to our attention some lesser known clauses in the Public Health Acts and Housing Acts which can be used to advantage. The Housing Act 1957 states that 11the use of any powers in this Act shall be subject to consideration of the need to preserve buildings of special architectural or historic interest". This means that the use of a Closing Order can be opposed in law in the case of a listed building. Similarly the Public Health Act 1961 states, in relation to dangerous structures 11use of powers in this Act shall be ;~bject to the laws of Town and Country Planning". Therefore a Listed Building Consent is required for anything other than the repairs option in that Act. The area of Administrative Law is one that is unfamiliar to most of us. George Allan explained that this is law 13 .
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