Looking to the past

IAPPRECIATE Athena’s concern for Historic England (November 28). Let me reassure you with hard evidence. The organisation is in very good health and we continue proudly and robustly to protect England’s historic environment. A healthy organisation is one that can adapt over time, which prompted the changes you mention to our structure and ways of working. We enjoy relatively low staff turnover, which protects our institutional memory and our current reorganisation means we will retain more than 95% of our existing workforce. By spending less on office space, we will recruit new people to ensure we have the skills needed to keep defending and championing the historic environment through challenging times.

Our reputation is rated by citizens to be in the top 10% of public bodies. In a vote of confidence in our ability to inject life back into neglected historic places, Historic England was awarded £40 million in the recent budget to revive historic town centres.

Far from retreating from public inquiries, we fought six last year, a substantial increase on previous years. We are currently fighting to protect London’s skyline in Hammersmith and Hounslow. Recent successes include sending developers back to the drawing board in Newark and winning an appeal on a case that would have harmed the Derwent Valley World Heritage Site.

You are quite right that we are trying to focus our activities and harbour our resources. We will continue to do so. Duncan Wilson, chief executive, Historic England