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Listed buildings

Background

Listed buildings are often seen as both a help and a hindrance. Many are well maintained and offer suitable opportunities for ‘recycling’ of their current use or indeed alternative uses. However, even if a listed building can be ‘recycled’, its design and condition may render it a costly and inefficient exercise.

Listed buildings located in ‘high value’ areas will generally offer better options for alternative uses, such as hotels or retail conversions.

Good examples of conversions include:
  • Croydon Clocktower - Now a cinema, cafe, exhibition space and performing arts facility;
  • Haringey - Took the opportunity of the Quirk review to consider a transfer to community ownership
  • Edinburgh City Council – The council released several of its surplus property assets, which included several buildings in the Conservation and World Heritage area.

When considering alternative uses, it is possible for an Architect to design a product which incorporates the re-use of a listed building for say the Civic accommodation whilst also producing modern offices alongside for a more functional administrative use. It is important to remember that listed buildings often present many unusual design challenges and therefore require creative solutions in order to achieve the best possible use. When considering the issue of finance costs, grant funding options are often a desirable avenue to pursue but is scarce and difficult to secure.

At the design stage of the project there will likely be the need for a team of professionals, such as, a project manager, architect, space planner, quantity surveyor and engineer. Additional areas that may require supplementary advice include facilities management and legal contracts.

Listed Building Grade Definitions:

  • Grade I - Buildings of exceptional interest;
  • Grade II* - Particularly important buildings of more than special interest;
  • Grade II - Buildings of special interest, warranting every effort to preserve them.

Statutory Criteria

Statutory criteria are set out by Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport and Secretary of State for the Environment. The following definitions are contained:

Architectural interest

Buildings of national importance for their architectural design, decoration and craftsmanship. Noteworthy examples of particular building types and construction techniques.

Historic interest

A building must illustrate important aspects of the Nation's social, economic, cultural or military history and/or have close historical associations with nationally important people. There should normally be some quality of interest in the physical fabric of the building itself to justify the statutory protection afforded by listing.

Group value

In particular, where buildings comprise an important architectural or historic unity or are a fine example of planning. For example, squares, terraces and model villages.

General Principles

General Principles are set out in Planning Policy Guidance Note 15 – Planning and the Historic Environment (Updated March 2007). Guidance includes the following:

Age and Rarity

The older and rarer a building is, the more likely it is to become listed. All buildings built before 1700 which survive in anything like their original condition are listed, as are most that are built between 1700 and 1840. After that period, the criteria become more stringent. This is due to the increased proportion of buildings erected and the large numbers which have survived. Therefore, post-1945 buildings need to be of significant importance in order to become listed. Buildings less than 30 years old are very rarely listed and only if they are of outstanding quality and under threat.

Aesthetic Merits

The aesthetic appearance of a building, be it its intrinsic architectural merit or any group value, is a key consideration in judging listing proposals. However, the special interest of a building will not always be reflected in obvious external visual quality. For example, buildings that are important for reasons of technological innovation, or as illustrating particular aspects of social or economic history, may have little external visual aesthetic merits.

Selectivity

A building may be listed primarily because it represents a particular historical type in order to ensure that examples of such a type are preserved. Listing in these circumstances is largely a comparative exercise and needs to be selective where a substantial number of buildings of any particular type and quality exist. In such cases, the Secretary of State’s policy is to list only the most representative and most significant examples.

National Interest

The emphasis is to establish consistency of selection in order to ensure that buildings of strong intrinsic architectural interest are included on the list, but also to include the most significant or distinctive regional buildings that together make up a major contribution to the national historic stock. For example, the most relevant vernacular buildings will normally be listed because together they illustrate the importance of distinctive local and regional traditions. Similarly, some buildings might be listed because they represent a nationally important but localised industry.

State of Repair

The Secretary of State will list a building which has been assessed as meeting the statutory criteria and is irrespective of its state of repair.

Further information:

  • Planning Policy Guidance Note 15 – Planning and the Historic Environment
  • English Heritage - Selection Guides for different building types
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