We thus apply controls of considerable stringency to a small selection of our heritage, and leave the rest unprotected. If we would be civilised, this is hard to gainsay. Emphasis is placed on what is nationally outstanding at the expense of what is local and typical. Mr Dorrell's forthcoming Green Paper will be a welcome opportunity to get to grips with these issues. It is not.
Conservation is about intelligent change.
Commonly, it is the lack of quality and sensitivity in proposals for changing listed buildings, not the principle of change, which gives affront. Owners who buy listed buildings and then stamp their feet when consent for crass schemes is refused deserve little sympathy. This is not to say that the system always works flawlessly. Negative perceptions are reinforced when planners with no specialist knowledge operate controls as mechanistic routines rather than with insight. But this is mainly because good conservation staff are too few, and usually too junior, to meet the demands made of them.