English Heritage seeks help to hunt out Grade II buildings at risk
English Heritage has today launched the Heritage at Risk Register 2012 and announced an ambitious programme to find out how the one major element of our heritage not already covered by the Register - the nation's Grade II listed buildings - can be assessed.
Adding those found to be at risk from neglect, decay, damaging alterations or dereliction to the national or local At Risk Registers would be a first step to securing their future.
There are some 345,000 Grade II buildings in England, accounting for 92% of all listed buildings. Beautiful, historic or architecturally special, they are the houses, cottages, shops, inns, offices, schools, town halls, libraries, farms, mills and other distinguished buildings that shape the character of our cities, towns and villages.
In Shropshire building on the register include a former candlehouse, part of Snailbeach lead mine and the timber-framed Hargreaves Farmhouse at Winnington near Wollaston. The building which dates from the early 17th century has been unoccupied for over 20 years and is in very poor structural condition. Shrewsbury's Ditherington Flax Mill is also included on the register.
Simon Thurley, Chief Executive of English Heritage, said: "Grade II buildings are the bulk of the nation's heritage treasury. When one of them is lost, it's as though someone has rubbed out a bit of the past - something that made your street or your village special will have gone.
"345,000 is not a large number in relation to all the buildings in England but it is too many for English Heritage to survey on its own. We need help and are prepared to fund nine to 15 pilot surveys around the country with local authorities, national parks, heritage and community groups as partners. For local authorities hard-pressed by cuts or other groups who come forward this means the chance to find out which buildings most need their scarce resources. And the results will help all parties involved, including the Heritage Lottery Fund and other grant-givers, to get rescues underway where nothing has been happening for years.
"It isn't just bean-counting. It really works. In London, Grade II buildings have been included on the Heritage at Risk Register since 1991 and 96% of them have been saved since then."
Simon Thurley concluded: "We launched a first ever Buildings at Risk Register in 1998. We have expanded it over the years to include archaeology, monuments, gardens, conservation areas, places of worship, ship wrecks and battlefields. Now, with the economic climate putting more pressure than ever on Grade II buildings, it's time to plug the one remaining gap. It's going to take a tremendous team effort but as the Olympics have shown, that's something this country is good at. Heritage Makers please step forward!"
The new Register published today reveals that between 2007 and 2012 the total "conservation deficit" for listed buildings and monuments (which is the shortfall between the cost of repairs and how much an owner could recoup from the market value of the repaired property) increased by 28% from £330 million to £423 million and the average conservation deficit per individual heritage site at risk increased by 37% from £267,000 to £366,000.
