which governs the way in which statutory bodies make their decisions. Statutory powers must be used reasonably and in good faith; for example local authority members must not be guilty of bias, even where there is no pecuniary interest involved. Decisions of the Secretary of State following Inspectors' reconnnendations on Public Inquiries can be challenged; an example was given where the Secretary of State had differed from his Inspector on a question of fact, had given a decision against the Inspect -or 1s reconnnendation and had subsequently had action taken against him, success -fully, by the local authority. In a less happy case, the Inspector's reconnnendations on an appeal against refusal of LBC for demolition of two cottages had been to allow consent on the grounds that the cottages "were not outstanding examples of their type and suffered from a lack of natural light". Had the Kent BPI' been able to afford it, it would have sued the Secretary of State for the unreasonableness of this decision I George Allan's presence generated lengthy and detailed discussion of particular cases, demonstrating -if this were needed - the innnense value to conservation staff of having available legal advice other than that of the usual cautious district or county solicitor. Most of us do not have the detailed legal knowledge to challenge a legal opinion which may be influenced more by reluctance to initiate action than by a desire to explore available powers of protection. We shall be looking to George for further advice. RESOWTIONS With the critical faculties finely honed by the steely advocacy of Mr. Allan, the opportunity was seized to proceed straight away to the determination of Conference Resolutions. Several resolu -tions were rejected on voting before the final seven were fixed. We were aware of the lack of credibility of resolutions of the 11Against Sin11 variety, but on the other hand felt that some issues were so important that reiteration was essential. (Resolution 3, 4 and 7). A degree of pragmatism was however evident; Peter Robshaw's motion to remove all Permitted Development rights was defeated, and Michael Green's pleas for moderation in demands being made for further projects for the DoE were received with sympathy, 14. The following resolutions were passed:- 1. Control of listed buildings should return to the DoE where (i) the local authority has a financial interest or (ii) the DoE has funded a grant. 2. The Secretary of State should advise Local Authorities that listed building consent may be required for external cleaning or painting. 3. ACOis to urge all Local Authorities to increase the level of resources available for conservation and to seek new sources of finance. 4. ACO believes that listed building owners should be given fiscal incentives to good management. 5. ACO is to urge local planning authorities to make lists of threatened historic buildings in their areas. 6. ACO is to ask DoE to publish (i) available information and an index to appeal decisions; (ii) statistics on prosecutions (iii) statistics on budgets under the 1962 Local Authorities (Historic Buildings) ·Act and (iv) analysis of listed building decisions. 7. ACOis to ask the Secretary of State for the Environment to eusure that the Department or Historic Buildings and Monuments Connnission are adequately staffed to meet their existing and future workload. CONCLUSION The consensus was that the course had been extremely valuable, not only in the amount of information disseminated and discussion generated, but as a first conference of the Association of Conservation Officers. We do hope that all Conservation Officers will feel encouraged to play an active part in ACO. We are extremely grateful to Roger France and to all the speakers for making this course possible, and hope that this will be only the first of many opportunities to gather all the members of ACO together in such congenial surroundings. Report by Jenny Birkett
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