6 Martin Bradshaw encourages conservation officers to take heart from the public concern over change in the built environment and look on planners as potential allies. THE LONELINESS OF THE LONG-DISTANCE CONSERVATIONIST Ruskin once observed that "there is nothing a man cannot make a little worse or sell a little cheaper". Whatever the galvanising effects of that gloomy but observably accurate comment were on his contemporaries, it is certainly the case that a good deal of worsening and cheapening has been avoided by the efforts of the conservation movement over the last 30 years. Yet the position of many conservation officers (who interestingly are still, largely, a public sector phenomenon) has become one of increasing isolation, not just within their own local authority but within the planning profession at large. The very need to establish a protective and comforting "Association of Conservation Officers" might even be seen by some as a manifestation of anxiety and of concern at being marginalised. It is a trend which is both worrying and unfortunate, and prompted my own comment (within a statement of RTPI Council candidature) on the need to make "Conservation Officers feel less isolated ... ". It would be comforting but illusory if we could retreat behind bland explanations for this state of affairs based on the general decline of "planning", or lack of resources, and on the sheer magnitude and pace of development change. It is, of course, true that the economic imperatives of our times have led to a reduced degree of control and regulation and that the extent of planning involvement in matters of design and aesthetics is now disturbingly low (and even that seems too much for the Secretary of State). It is also inarguable that the scale of development pressure is probably at its greatest since the 19th century, although it is now combined with a belated market recognition that a good environment is a good investment. We have also had to face the fairly predictable anti-conservation backlash, derived from accusations of obsession with the past, a cultural stultification, and a failure to see that the economic and social needs of a community imply forward looking change. The arguments are thin, although the backlash is real enough. In fact, public concern for, and involvement in, our day-to-day environment has probably never been greater, and conservation of that environment, at building, village and town level is now a process that is well accepted, even entrenched to the point where Martin Pawley could refer not long ago to the "occult power of conservation". And the real answer to arguments that we are conserving too many areas, or listing too many buildings, is simply that, far from this representing any innate preoccupation with the past, it results from what Tony Fyson called the "great mistrust of the new in the built environment, born of bitter experience of modern development". Less than a person Yet, rightly or wrongly, and despite increased public awareness, the feelings of separation persist. They are not explained only by economics. Although it is a matter of concern that sens1t1ve development decisions are often taken by local authorities with only a token contribution from the "less than one person engaged in full time conservation work" (as the RTPI, rather caustically puts it), this is a symptom rather than a cause. That is evident if one remembers that all local authorities operate within the same corpus of law. Yet some authorities carry out sustained conservation programmes over a period of years whilst others do very little; some exercise their 1962 powers to make grants even though most do not use their powers at all; and a few place their conservation officers in the forefront of the decision-making process even though many do not. So what we have is an institutional failing to recognise the process of conserving as a natural part of the planning process. Action is as a result opportunist and dependent on the quality and influence of an enlightened officer and/or elected member. The paradox is that most planning officers - and not a few members - would, if asked, accept that conservation is essentially a part of the wider planning process and that it cannot be practised successfully in isolation from the structure and local plan-making framework, nor without regard to the development control functions of a local planning authority. They would agree that the need for conservation is a matter which has to be integrated with what we simultaneously perceive to be desirable economic and social change, and with architectual innovation. CONTEXT23
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