We’re making a list and checking it twice

LISTING, as Roger Bowdler observes (‘The Big List’, November 17), presents a mixed picture. The legal requirement for Listed Building Consent for alterations was introduced in 1968, 20 years after the first listings began. Owners today sometimes feel that these controls can be enforced rather too enthusiastically by local officials. With the pressing requirement for buildings to adapt in the face of climate change, it is arguably this system of Listed Building Consent, rather than the process of listing itself, that needs the most urgent attention.

Ben Cowell, director general of Historic Houses