English Heritage is to mobilise a volunteer Heritage Army – “the first crowd-sourcing project to tackle heritage at risk”. The idea is to get volunteers to carry out surveys of England’s 345,000 Grade II buildings “to enable thousands of passionate heritage fans to get more actively involved.”
Simon Thurley, Chief Executive of English Heritage, said: “Today we are announcing a win / win proposition. For English Heritage it means we will eventually get, for the first time, a complete picture of the condition of all England’s listed heritage. We can use this information to decide how best to deploy our national expertise to help owners and all those tackling heritage at risk on the ground. And we’ll have a grass-roots network to spread understanding and appreciation of local heritage so that less of it becomes at risk in the first place.”
It certainly fits with something we’ve been suggesting for years regarding prehistoric monuments – there is already a passionate, knowledgeable army of enthusiasts out there who regularly visit those, even ones in inaccessible places. Many of them keep EH informed of their condition but a more formalised system including phone apps would certainly improve protection at minimal cost.
However Rescue News made an important point (on Twitter) :
“Involving the volunteer public in assessing Heritage at Risk is a great idea. But they should NEVER replace qualified professionals!” And of course, doing that may well be in the Government’s mind. They also made a sharp retort to Planning Minister Nick Boles:
“not making it easier to demolish those beautiful places and heritage assets we all value would be a help too”!
The Heritage Journal 
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11/10/2013 at 11:32
bishopshouse
The problem with current listing is that very few grade 2 listed buildings are ever inspected internally & this won’t change by using amateurs. Many buildings are wrongly dated and listed at the wrong level because interiors which would change status etc are not looked at.
2nd problem is that many listed buildings that are under threat are under public ownership. How would a council prosecute itself?
3rd problem is that new planning law allows economic consideration to over rule community importance as seen in the recent demolition of Jessop Hospital wing. Over 4’000 campaigned against the demolition of a grade 2 listed building and didn’t even get heard.
So if we do get this list together how will that help other than give us more to weep over?
In Sheffield Timewalk project is attempting to show people the heritage that is still around but many in Sheffield are extremely anxious since the Jessop case that they have no real voice.
11/10/2013 at 19:10
lanceleuven
“not making it easier to demolish those beautiful places and heritage assets we all value would be a help too”!
How very true.
15/10/2013 at 14:57
Mr. Christopher Strickland
This is a LONG reply so read no further if you have a short attention span!
I think this is a great idea, but how it will work out on paper, then function effectively in real life situations when the new volunteers are on site are all very different indeed. The government are very well practiced at being “concerned and “inspired” to do something about a problem and looking busy…yet they do not get directly involved. Funny that. Charity starts at home, brother!
I remember well the fantastic “idea” that Parliament proposed back in 2003 to start the ball rolling on what eventually bacame the Home Inspection Pack or “HIP”. The original idea was great…it was supposed to regulate the practice of “gazumping” and help buyers to make an informed decision about a property/house BEFORE they had to pay for a survey or buy a house with problems and inherit a money pit they could not inform…and ruin their finances.
This was a noble and just cause, and the idea had a good bit of support…except for the little problem of training up hundreds of new people in this new profession and getting them suitably qualified and bolstering public confidence in both the new law and the new profession…in reality the RICS challenged Parliament and made them rewrite the proposal and the law so that the chartered surveyors would not suffer a loss of income due to the new professionals doing preliminary home inspections…limiting the scope of what the new Home Inspectors could do (especially with listed or protected buildings which were not part of the HIP/DEA training) and protecting the chartered surveyors’ existing and future livelihoods.
Heck, the RICS was so happy with the amended law they even sent some of their surveyors to become instructors for the students enrolled in the courses to become Domestic Energy Assessors and Home Inspectors. Training companies popped up everywhere like fairy rings all over England and Wales. The ideas and brainstorming sessions all paid off…DEAs and HIs got trained by the companies with help from CORGI, NICEIC, BRE, and SAVA and certified by ABBE to meet the requirements and standards set by the professional bodies involved.
This was a revolution ! A new way of doing things that actually would PROTECT potential home buyers and investors from risking and losing their hard-earned money and keeping everything above the table…no more slimy estate agents covering up problems in a house to get their commission. No more risky ventures in investing that cost mega money, which had to be passed on to tenants to recoup losses! No more endless gazumping…dashing the dreams of young bright-eyed couples, families, and hopeful university graduates upon the rocks of deception and greed! No more lying, no more up front inspections costing hundreds of pounds! Oh happy day! O BRAVE NEW WORLD!
Now let me tell you what happened in REALITY…since those poor “new professionals” and those who supported them..and the idea of fairness, transparency and the Plain English in property transactions in the UK seem to have been forgotten in the media maelstrom of politics, wars, international intrigue, and celebrity gossip headlines….and of course there is the pesky recession that is not officially a recession.
What happened was…the Labour party who were in power at the time did not actively and effectively communicate with the public, the legal professionals, and all other affected parties. They did not take the necessary time to ask for valuable input from all the people this new law was supposed to benefit or possibly impact upon. WHOOPS!
So the whole EPC /HIP package was met with ignorance, resentment, misunderstanding, suspicion and even hostility by those groups who did not wish to see a slice of their pie go towards paying for this new “Project”. Funny enough at the same time this was going on, the housing market in the USA and then the UK fell through the floor due to over-speculation, poor management inside lending firms, hyper-inflated housing prices, an economy that was bouyed up by artficially induced inflation – by governments turning a blind eye, the banks who were earning fat profits and bonuses, and good old fashioned greed from consumers and investors unaware of the looming catastrophe.
The housing market plummeted, so did property sales, building, development, and of course concurrently the demand for Energy Performance Certificates and Home Inspections decreased. Meanwhile thousands of newly enrolled student HI/DEA “candidates” and recently qualified Inspectors were worrying about what would happen next. Assurances were given that it would be okay…this was a hiccup. There was a bright future in being a DEA and a HI. This too, would pass. recruitment of students(cash cows) continued, even as smaller training companies began to fold and go bankrupt daily.
This “hiccup” which started in the USA and its allied financial institutions here in the UK and the EU….deepened and became more of a nagging, bad cough. There were calls for blood and accusations flying everywhere about the ruinous mess the US, UK, and world economies were in. As Labour party politicians were ducking and dodging allegations of impropriety in the (mis)handling of the middle east conflict, any pet projects fell by the wayside and were left to fend for themselves. The HIP was one of these. People did not care about the HIP. They cared about their son/daughter going off to war or losing their house to the bank, etc.
This all coincided neatly with elections and the transition from the Labour party to the new Frankenstein Party (of collaborative Conservatives and anyone who is not Labour) Under Mr. David “tartan as tea” Cameron and the Brothers Grimm. The new guys needed some scape goats to hunt and kill. So, the HIP and all associated members and professional bodies were targeted. The HIP was falsely attacked as the reason the HOUSING MARKET WAS IN DECLINE because sellers/homeowners did not want to pay for the HIP or the EPC because it was too pricey. It was called unnecessary, a waste of time and money, costing the poor taxpayers, delaying or putting off sellers and buyers,not effective at reducing gazumping, misunderstood, etc.
For the sake of getting votes and winning support from a reluctant public It was demonized and bastardized by the government which only 2 years earlier had been singing its praises and promoting it like a QUEEN reunion concert tour to the masses (although rather badly).
The rest of the remaining training providers began to band together to defend the HIP, but the new party under Cameron scuttled the ship of dreams and did a little victory jig. Thousands of people who had invested time and life savings into being trained up as an inspectors were left holding the bag as companies literally went into administration due to shares plummeting, no more recruits due to the law being repealed. It was very grim. This was not a victory celebration, it was a wake.
Then something happened…something that should not have, if the governing party was right; the housing market did not start to float up again and recover!!! No, it kept sliding downwards…and now thanks to all the thousands of former student trainees who were jobless and short of a few thousand pounds, the number of unemployed increased as well.
Get in line and sign up for bread and soup, boys! Get on the dole, get it while its hot! Then the beginning of the end…and here we are now 6 years later. Train up a “volunteer army ” to inspect houses and determine their condition? Now let me think…that sounds familiar! Funny how the past catches up to you isn’t it?
THOSE WHO DO NOT LEARN FROM HISTORY ARE DOOMED TO REPEAT IT.
Mr. Thurley should know that as he works for EH and knows about history, right? Ahem…RIGHT? I think somebody needs to debrief him about this former incarnation of inspectors. For instance, how will they be trained or educated and who shall pay for this? The inspectors and students paid for the last government “mistake” dearly. It would be a disaster if this happened again.
Put that in your pipe Boles and smoke it, matey!
15/10/2013 at 15:53
Time Walk Project
I don’t think this is the same circumstances although I do share some of your concerns.
I feel the whole listing system is fundamentally flawed. Better than nothing but whether its listed or not and at what level seems to be who shouts loudest rather than a proper consideration of a place on its merits. Here in Sheffield we have buildings that are unique of International significance and yet they are graded as 2. Same importance elsewhere would be a world heritage site.
That as it may be. I believe there are plenty of local historians who could assess local buildings and take photographs. All that is really needed is a photographic record. But my question remains. What next? I can think of at least 3 buildings at risk that belong to the council. Also the council has 2 development plans which will result in demolition of a grade 2 * building and in the other drastic changes to a grade 2 structure so how do we police this? Councils are not really interested in enforcing or protecting listed structures, and present government is not interested in intervening so unless we have an independent body with teeth all this listing and recording is a pointless exercise.