Listed Building Consent?

[Abi Cott]

I'm commenting on a post about plastic windows in the village Facebook group and low and behold another numpty.

"Depends what listing you can do what you want inside to grade 2 x mines been completely renivated"

Has any one got a handy link I can post. Preferably something very simple and easy to read.

 

[MikeG]

Here you go.

 

[MatthewC]

I'm commenting on a post about plastic windows in the village Facebook group and low and behold another numpty.

"Depends what listing you can do what you want inside to grade 2 x mines been completely renivated"

Has any one got a handy link I can post. Preferably something very simple and easy to read.

https://www.cherwell.gov.uk/info/126/conservation-and-heritage/311/what-is-a-listed-building/1

 

[Abi Cott]

Thank you :mrgreen:

 

[Pennyviz]

A friend bought a listed property in Bristol centre and wanted to open up the kitchen/dining area, but ran into a load of problems with fire regs etc. Not a CO thing I know but once you start ......

I'd love to know a little more about this, because it is perfectly possible to have an entirely open plan house with no regulations issues. I can't begin to imagine what the problem could have been, and this is my job!

It was something to do with the fact it was a basement flat, and the kitchen had a door to the outside, I'll ask her next time I see her.

Penny

 

[88v8]

The number of people that tell me grade II listing means they can't change the outside but can do what they like to the inside is scary. There is not enough education of listed property owners.

I was surprised when we bought our house that we received no routine communication/guidance about the practicalities of its Listed status. A one-page Can/Can't & CO contacts. Councils are fully aware of which properties are listed, and know when they change hands.
If this is typical, then the Councils are substantially to blame.
Enforcement & fines are quite useless after the event. One can only destroy originality once.

Had it not been for stumbling across this forum, I would not have been at all aware of lime/cement issues, who knew that pointing material is crucial. In our previous house that I treasured for thirty years it was not an issue.
And the only work done here by PO under CO auspices was an outshut built on a cement/dpm base that has pushed damp into the adjacent wall, with brick walls laid & pointed in cement. A shining example of how not to. Huh.
The entire house was pointed in cement pre-listing - we have redone some of it in iime - but PO fixed that by carefully painting over the pointing with lime-coloured Sandtex.

All that said, the list of prosecutions posted by FF ... demolitions, alterations to GII*, continuance in the face of prohibition orders. Developers, builders....

But the notion that one can do what one likes to the interior of a common or garden dwelling is simply a reflection of fact, as extensively exampled by the cubed and Disneyfied interiors on Rightmove. I fear that insulation obsessives are partly to blame, and now it seems that UFH will accelerate the destruction.

Ivor

 

[Gareth Hughes]

Councils are fully aware of which properties are listed, and know when they change hands.
If this is typical, then the Councils are substantially to blame.

Information supplied to a council as part of one role (collecting council tax payments, for instance) is subject to fairly strict data protection rules which generally mean that I, as a Conservation Officer, cannot access the ownership information to make an unsolicited approach to a new owner who has not yet committed any offence.

 

[steveb]

A bit of lateral thinking maybe, the land registry "sold" data is public. Technically, if one had a list of listed buildings, you may be able to join that with the land registry sold data as they happen and then proactively write to the "new owner" introducing yourself and the work that you do.

That of course would assume that you had the time and the budget to do so, neither of which I suspect are true

 

[Abi Cott]

A periodic flyer might help. Something unaddressed so not subject to data protection. Definitely not addressed to "The current occupier" just a simple leaflet.

Your property is listed. Do YOU know what that means?

If it went out every 5 years you'd gradually develop a bit of herd immunity. Enough people in an area that understood and could educate their friends and neighbours.

It would still cost money but would be cheaper than addressed mail. It might work well in a Conservation Area as you can target leaflet drops by street or postcode.

 

[Flyfisher]

A bit of lateral thinking maybe, the land registry "sold" data is public. Technically, if one had a list of listed buildings, you may be able to join that with the land registry sold data as they happen and then proactively write to the "new owner" introducing yourself and the work that you do.

That of course would assume that you had the time and the budget to do so, neither of which I suspect are true

Why not simply record the fact that the property is listed in the title deeds, along with all the other covenants, wayleaves, and other legal rights and obligations?

 

[Abi Cott]

The problem isn't people knowing their houses are listed. It's that they don't understand what grade II listed means to them. Rightmove tells you the listing status of the property. They ask their mates and family what grade II listed means and get told they can't alter the outside of the property and replacement windows might be expensive but that they can do what they want with the inside.

 

[88v8]

Information supplied to a council as part of one role (collecting council tax payments, for instance) is subject to fairly strict data protection rules which generally mean that I, as a Conservation Officer, cannot access the ownership information to make an unsolicited approach to a new owner who has not yet committed any offence.

That must be rather frustrating, to put it mildly.
The Council can contact me about trivia such as recycling, but not about our built heritage.

However, I suspect data protection is just the latest alibi for the Council bean-counters who don't really want to fund your department.
After all, I am currently receiving umpteen communications from organisations asking if it's OK to continue contacting me. I bet you could send a flyer to new Listed property owners as I postulate in my previous post, and asking if it's OK for the CO to continue contacting them

Ivor

 

[Flyfisher]

Information supplied to a council as part of one role (collecting council tax payments, for instance) is subject to fairly strict data protection rules which generally mean that I, as a Conservation Officer, cannot access the ownership information to make an unsolicited approach to a new owner who has not yet committed any offence.

Why can't information be supplied to a council explicitly for the role of the CO, ie a register of all the listed properties under their care and a list of their current owners?

Besides which, isn't all this information already publically available for anyone to see, eg Historic England online listed buildings register and the open electoral register?

 

[Gareth Hughes]

Information supplied to a council as part of one role (collecting council tax payments, for instance) is subject to fairly strict data protection rules which generally mean that I, as a Conservation Officer, cannot access the ownership information to make an unsolicited approach to a new owner who has not yet committed any offence.

Why can't information be supplied to a council explicitly for the role of the CO, ie a register of all the listed properties under their care and a list of their current owners?

Besides which, isn't all this information already publically available for anyone to see, eg Historic England online listed buildings register and the open electoral register?

Well, I (for example) am not on the open electoral register. And 15 years or so ago there was a huge media fuss about English Heritage/s "Images of England" project, which sought to put photographs, taken from the public highway, of listed buildings online. Frankly, the publicity that would be whipped up by the likes of the Taxpayers' Alliance and the Daily Heil about "council snoopers" tends to outweigh any benefits there might be from sending out a thousand or so leaflets (in a typical local authority area) to listed building owners.

 

[Flyfisher]

Strange that the 'images of England' project should have attracted a media fuss when it's all there already in the form of Google Streetview.

Perhaps part of the problem is that while government deems listed buildings to be of special national interest and heritage, it doesn't deem them worthy of any real support, preferring to impose conditions and legal obligations on the owners instead.

My own experience of the listing system has actually been very good - a CO who has always been readily available to visit and talk about listing issues and offer expert advice , plus VAT relief for a lot of the work I've carried out over the years. Seems like a reasonable exchange.

However, we all know that VAT relief has been ended and we've all read the frustrating stories on here of owners not being able to contact their CO or having to pay for the privilege of doing so - so perhaps I've just been lucky and it's not actually such a good deal for most owners, hence why some (many?) listed building owners are less inclined to bother themselves with the rules and simply treat their home as their 'castle' and do as they wish with it.

 

[Pennyviz]

A friend bought a listed property in Bristol centre and wanted to open up the kitchen/dining area, but ran into a load of problems with fire regs etc. Not a CO thing I know but once you start ......

I'd love to know a little more about this, because it is perfectly possible to have an entirely open plan house with no regulations issues. I can't begin to imagine what the problem could have been, and this is my job!

Finally remembered to ask my friend - basically they wanted to remove stud wall and door separating kitchen and dining area to make it open plan; flat is basement with a very small garden leading from kitchen door. They were told they couldn't do this because the new design presented a fire hazard with such a small garden; in the end the solution was to make a small gate to their neighbours garden in case of fire as they had to be able to get away to an area that was as far as the house was tall. It still doesn't really make any sense, but that's how it went.

Penny