For them, conservation is an irksome process, visited on unlucky owners by Kafkaesque officialdom. To explore the dynamics of these frustrations it is useful to consider the philosophy behind our system. This rests on the principle that certain buildings, monuments and sites are of such importance that the public interest in their care should override the liberty of an owner to neglect, mutilate or destroy them. 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.