New clause 50 - Development of a listed building or
Planning and Compulsory Purchase (Re-committed) Bill
10:00 am
Mr Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight, Conservative)
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
I offer a warm welcome to you this morning, Mr. Pike. I am pleased to be back in the Committee, and I apologise for my absence on Tuesday afternoon. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet for moving two new clauses in my absence.
According to its title, new clause 50 deals with development of a listed building or structure in a conservation area. In fact, that is a polite way of saying that it deals with the destruction of listed buildings and structures in conservation areas. The new clause would enable local planning authorities to require the restoration or reconstruction of a structure
that is protected because it is in a conservation area or because it requires listed building consent. If the developer—I use that word because it is the legal term for someone who knocks down a listed building—fails to restore the building, the new clause would enable the local authority to do so.
I am sure that the Committee is aware that English Heritage maintains a list of listed buildings at risk. I accept that the problem is not only developers; sometimes local planning authorities that allow listed buildings to fall into disrepair. The regional director of the south-east region drew my attention to the fact that one of the listed buildings at risk in my constituency is Northwood house, which he describes as
''A long-standing case of partial neglect by the Isle of Wight Council . . . now partly ameliorated by repairs''.
I do not claim for a moment that local authorities are perfect in this respect, but they do have a locus to maintain their own list of listed buildings and other structures in conservation areas that are at risk. They need to be confident that they can act to have such buildings restored if damage is caused to them, either wilfully or through neglect. I shall give some examples.
The new clause is designed to test and strengthen the existing law. There is insufficient guarantee that listed buildings and structures in conservation areas—I hope the Minister will be happy if I do not keep repeating that—will be protected. Too many buildings of that sort suffer from curious accidents at a time when they lie in the way of potential development. I would like to give two examples of that drawn from my constituency. Before I started speaking, I should have declared an interest because I am an owner of a listed building, but not one of those to which I refer elsewhere in my remarks.
In the Cowes high street conservation area there is a grade 2 listed pub, the Three Crowns. Sadly, it was demolished by a bulldozer under the control of a developer who was planning to turn it into a jazz bar. I am pleased to say that the magistrates found him guilty of an offence under listed buildings legislation and imposed a fine of £25,000, which I believe is close to the maximum. I congratulate them on that. However, I regret to say that the building has not been rebuilt, and only the fa¢ade remains.
A second example concerns Merrie Gardens farm. I confess that when I heard that there was a farm called Merrie Gardens, I thought that it came out of ''The Archers'', but it is a real building, and a quite historic one. A stone and thatched mediaeval building at Lake, it was gutted by fire, and there is no sign that it is to be reconstructed. All the adjoining premises have a commercial or industrial use. It is not difficult to draw the conclusion that the fire may not have been entirely an act of God.
The new clause defines a relevant structure as
''a building or other structure which is subject to conservation area consent or a listed building''.
It defines development, and states clearly that what is meant is
''(in the judgement of the local planning authority) destruction or substantial damages''.
It states:
''The local planning authority shall, save in exceptional circumstances, require that the owner restore the relevant structure within a specified period to its state before the development took place.''
Exceptional circumstances means
''if an alternative planning application is approved within 6 months''.
The new clause would allow the local planning authority to define the specified period, which should not exceed three years. Subsection (4) would give the local planning authority the power, if the owner did not restore the building, to make arrangements to restore it at his expense.
I hope that the new clause would be a powerful tool to enable local authorities to ensure that listed buildings are neither wantonly neglected nor wantonly destroyed. It is one thing for an owner to face a fine of £25,000, but if the development value of a site significantly exceeds the likely maximum fine—in many cases it exceeds that sum by a multiple of 10—there is precious little disincentive to allow buildings to fall into disuse, neglect or destruction.