The Heseltine Test proves the best
IN the early 1980s, Michael Heseltine introduced a simple, but successful heritage test: permission would not normally be given to demolish a listed building unless it had been offered for sale, preferably freehold. He backed up the test with the use of his reserve ministerial powers to serve repairs orders on decaying listed buildings. He did this, for example, on derelict 18th-century Barlaston Hall, Staffordshire, as a warning shot to its recalcitrant owners, the Wedgwood Company, which soon after sold the house it had neglected for £1 and let others restore it.
Shamefully, Mr Heseltine’s test has increasingly become merely a paper test, allowing developers to employ consultants simply to argue that a listed building they don’t want is beyond economic repair.
Added to which, district and county councils have sometimes been very reluctant to serve repair orders. Recently, however, there have been some striking council interventions. Historic England has also added both regional Buildings at Risk officers and a grant fund that can pave the way for repairs notices—drawing up schedules of urgent works and costs with the help of engineers and architects. It can even, on occasion, pay for the actual repairs and put a charge on the building to recoup them.
In 2015, for example, Manchester City Council, after a many-year battle, secured the sale of the landmark London Road Fire Station, a Baroque’n’roll Edwardian beauty. Terms have just been agreed for its restoration. Before that, in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, one of the prime buildings in the town centre, Pioneer House, was compulsorily purchased by Kirklees Council to halt decay and stimulate regeneration.
There has also been good news from Wales, where Troy House, Monmouthshire, has finally escaped from a spiral of decay. Here, the district council had allowed enabling development to save it, but the minister overturned this on the grounds that the proposed new houses were on a flood plain. In extremis, Troy House was put up for auction with a guide price of £200,000. It attracted 23 bidders and was sold for £1,356,000, hopefully to a genuine restoring purchaser. In Scotland, there has been support for community land acquisitions, notably at Leith Walk and Portobello Old Parish Church in Edinburgh.
As lockdown eases, the housing market suggests a flight from the city and a new interest in living in the shires. Owners of long-decaying country houses, such as Piercefield House beside Chepstow Racecourse and Winstanley Hall, Lancashire (where Historic England, among other donors, valiantly contributed £250,000 to repair the stable courtyard), need to be compelled to act. These great houses should either be auctioned or their owners served with repair orders. Who knows, as at Troy House, the sellers might receive a pleasant surprise.
Athena would welcome nominations for other needlessly decaying country houses.
Owners of longdecaying country houses need to be compelled to act