The government’s heritage lobby is at loggerheads with city councils around the UK over the construction of tall buildings.
Historic England has raised concerns this year about the height of three of Manchester’s tallest proposed towers, all backed by the city council. They include Bruntwood and Select Property’s first phase of Circle Square; residential towers at Allied London’s St John’s and the St Michael’s skyscrapers proposed by Gary Neville’s Jackson Row Development Company.
He said: “One of the people I meet regularly at MIPIM is chief executive Sir Howard Bernstein and on this occasion we looked at each other in a more wary fashion because we knew we might be about to disagree. But on other occasions we review the cases before us and note that our relationship is working.”
In December, amid a surge in applications, Historic England issued stricter guidance on tall buildings including assessing appropriate areas for tall buildings within the local plan.
Historic England says it is not against tall buildings, which “can represent the best of modern architecture”. It recently supported plans for Manchester’s tallest skyscraper at 66 storeys, proposed by Renaker Build in Owen Street.
But it has called on communities secretary Sajid Javid to review Camden Council’s plans for a 25-storey residential tower in Somers Town close to Regent’s Park, NW1, which it says will ruin historic city views from terraces designed by John Nash.
Phil Jones, Camden’s cabinet member for regeneration, transport and planning, said: “The view in question is quite some distance from Nash Terrace and is visible only from certain places.”
Jones said plans should be judged in the context of the local area. “I think they would like a Parisian system where you cannot go above a certain height limit,” he said.
Historic England’s director of planning Chris Smith tells developers how to avoid rows
Preservation or conservation?
Definitely conservation. We use the phrase constructive conservation. It is about making sure that the important historic environment, which so improves our quality of lives, defines the character of the nation and so on, has a viable next 100 years.
So you would not see yourselves as anti-development?
We are not anti-development at all. In fact, my London director, our development director and I go to MIPIM UK in London every autumn and to MIPIM in the spring to talk to as many developers as we can and to many of our principal contacts in the local authorities.
How can developers avoid attracting objections from Historic England?
Pre-pre-pre-app. Like all government agencies, we do get involved in the formal pre-application process. We welcome discussions before that. Sometimes the first phone call can be one where we can be completely straight with people, assuming it is one of the sites we know.
How much power do you have?
We only advise, and that is one of the interesting things about our business. If this was a video interview, I could show you the general look I get from local authorities and developers when we say: “It’s only advice.” And I think the verbal equivalent of their look is: “Yeah, right.” So it is very influential advice, but technically that is the situation.
Is Historic England getting tougher? Or are the various objections a response to the number of large schemes?
I don’t think our stance has changed for the tougher. A regulator is bound from time to time to say: “Well, we have drawn attention, through our guidance and our meetings on site and everything else, to the matters that we consider to be of importance and in this case we cannot endorse the line that is being taken.” But the number of our strong formal letters of objection, and the number of times we have to take the even stronger step of asking the secretary of state to call it in, has not risen significantly.
What is Historic England?
Formed in May 2015 following a de-merger with English Heritage, Historic England is an independent government body that advises councils on planning decisions and is answerable to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.
Developers usually meet with Historic England during the pre-application stage. A peer review of the scheme is then carried out by an advisory group.
The London Advisory Committee, Historic England Advisory Committee and other specialist groups are being conflated into one task force, which is also open to external advice. The task force advises on the position that should be taken. Historic England then makes its submissions to the relevant council.
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