Not At Risk. No, Really. Honest.
According to a survey by English Heritage released today, one in seven conservation areas in London are 'at risk' - mainly from "neglect, decay or damaging change."
You know the sort of thing - dodgy extensions, icky 'improvements,' street clutter, the wholesale paving-over of front gardens, giant advertisement hoardings, nasty front dormers, yada, yada. EH's biggest bugbear is plastic windows and doors.
"Hm," I thought to myself. "I can think of a few 'additions' to some local conservation areas. I'll look up the results and see just how bad we are..."
Hold onto your hats, folks. Greenwich is squeaky-clean.
What? Not a single conservation area in the whole of Greenwich borough at risk? Heavens. What paragons of heritage preservation we must be after all. I must have just been imagining that front-dormer in Humber Road...
It was only when I looked a little further, that I started to smell a rat. English Heritage got their results by contacting councils and asking them if there was anything wrong with their lovely conservation areas. Simon Thurley, (CEO of EH) was "delighted that 75% responded..."
Let's look at the possible meanings of our own fair borough's omission from the list.
Number One. The Bucolic Greenwich Scenario. We really do have completely healthy conservation areas, every development in these spots is utterly gorgeous to look at and we live in an Arcadian Dream.
Aw, c'mon. It's possible...
Number Two. The Oops-I-knew-there-was-something-I-meant-to-do Scenario. Greenwich Councilcouldn't be bothered forgot to fill in the form. Well - at least they're not alone - a quarter of councils did the same thing.
Number Three. The Nothing-to-see-here Scenario. Surely Greenwich Council wouldn't lie about the state of our conservation areas? After all we're not at any kind of risk of losing our World Heritage status, are we.
Nah. It's got to be Number One. It's just got to be.
What's your favourite 'addition' to a conservation area? Remember it has to be a conservation area, so sadly my all-time favourite conversion, to adjoining properties on the corner of Halstow and Chevening Roads - so extraordinary that it's made its way into a Harper Collins book on period property, and worth making a special trip just to witness (sorry - I've never had my camera whenever I've been that way), doesn't count...
You know the sort of thing - dodgy extensions, icky 'improvements,' street clutter, the wholesale paving-over of front gardens, giant advertisement hoardings, nasty front dormers, yada, yada. EH's biggest bugbear is plastic windows and doors.
"Hm," I thought to myself. "I can think of a few 'additions' to some local conservation areas. I'll look up the results and see just how bad we are..."
Hold onto your hats, folks. Greenwich is squeaky-clean.
What? Not a single conservation area in the whole of Greenwich borough at risk? Heavens. What paragons of heritage preservation we must be after all. I must have just been imagining that front-dormer in Humber Road...
It was only when I looked a little further, that I started to smell a rat. English Heritage got their results by contacting councils and asking them if there was anything wrong with their lovely conservation areas. Simon Thurley, (CEO of EH) was "delighted that 75% responded..."
Let's look at the possible meanings of our own fair borough's omission from the list.
Number One. The Bucolic Greenwich Scenario. We really do have completely healthy conservation areas, every development in these spots is utterly gorgeous to look at and we live in an Arcadian Dream.
Aw, c'mon. It's possible...
Number Two. The Oops-I-knew-there-was-something-I-meant-to-do Scenario. Greenwich Council
Number Three. The Nothing-to-see-here Scenario. Surely Greenwich Council wouldn't lie about the state of our conservation areas? After all we're not at any kind of risk of losing our World Heritage status, are we.
Nah. It's got to be Number One. It's just got to be.
What's your favourite 'addition' to a conservation area? Remember it has to be a conservation area, so sadly my all-time favourite conversion, to adjoining properties on the corner of Halstow and Chevening Roads - so extraordinary that it's made its way into a Harper Collins book on period property, and worth making a special trip just to witness (sorry - I've never had my camera whenever I've been that way), doesn't count...
Labels: Debates, Green Greenwich
posted by The Greenwich Phantom at
08:35
14 Comments:
is that the strange horsey property and the one which appears to have had a garage put into it's front room? some decisions are a bit odd. I used to imagine that hidden in those back gardens is some kind of equine utopia.
Yup, that's the one. There is just so much to enjoy. It's called Shangri-la, and it's had such extraordinarily drastic changes that one has to wonder why they didn't just sell up and buy a place that actually fitted requirements...
I recommend a personal viewing for optimum enjoyment but if you can't make it, try page 16 of Albert Jackson and David Day's "Period House," published by Harper Collins. It's in the chapter headed "decorative styles."
Oh dear. Hadn't seen that before, but it's captured nicely on google Street View: http://is.gd/1a1l4
One to watch for, folks - Frank the Yank is going to be "refurbishing" the Coach and Horses next April, in the hope, presumably, that in the context of the mayhem of demolition that is taking place all around, any bits of vandalism that he chooses to undertake will go unnoticed.
Conservation areas suck. Cities need to continually develop for the current and future needs of the people who live and work in them. If an unelected pressure group dislike UPVC windows then maybe they should offer to pay for wooden ones for the rest of the masses? My own property falls within a conservation area I didnt bother asking if I could remove the sash windows from the rear of the property to replace with nice modern fully revsable windows that i can actually clean / paint / maintain. Sorry conservationists!
@Fed up with planners Well if you don't like living in a conservation area the solution is quite simple....
But its not that simple is it. LB Greenwich use a much different interpretation to other London boroughs with regard to conservation areas. They are apply an almost listed building approach in some areas. If you are a large scale developer things just seem a bit easier though.
@Fedup - fair enough if you like plastic windows: but why not buy a building that looks horrible already, and save yourself the work?
Greenwich has poor enforcement of listing and conservation areas anyway. If you ask for permission, they make you jump through hoops. If you go ahead and stick plastic windows in, even in a conservation area, they generally do absolutely nothing.
I dont like plastic windows but I dont see why people are forced to buy much more expensive alternatives. What does a double glazed sah window cost? 1500 quid maybe. Thats a lot of dosh for people on a budget i would suggest. My point was more that people seem obsessed with maintaining some olde worlde london as opposed to allowing people to reconfigure their homes to meet the needs of 21st century living. I dont mean to imply that this should be done using poor designs, arhictecture etc.
@Fed up..If you move into a conservation area house with, say, sash windows (and I'm assuming leasehold or freehold ownership here), then part of the decision surely is to understand that - yes - you would have to take into account perhaps replacing the windows with something similar when needed.
(Why wouldn't sash windows 'meet the needs of 21st living'? They normally last decades if looked after.)
People on a low income may be able to get a grant from their council - even if they're private owners, although I don't know if LBG do this.
I didnt say that sash windows dont meet the needs of 21st century living. My point was more that any modern adjustment to your house is frowned upon. Why is this - why are we prevented from building and renovating in a way that future generations will appreciate whilst making your home more suitable. More light, more open spaces etc etc. Its not as if we are preserving original buildings. If you want to take down a non period feature that may have been added to your house in the 1970s for instance then you have to jump through the same hoops. The local council's approach seems to frown upon any private development yet favour large scale bland projects.
Interesting comment from fed up about forcing people to spend money. Difficult one. But houses in roads that look more coherent generally go for more money and certainly look a hell better. So it's money well spent, assuming you have it.
I think the rule of thumb is that the front should stay more or less true to the original, (while you should be able to do pretty much whatever the hell you like behind the facade, within reason, natch)
Therefore, wooden windows on the front of the house would seem to be the order of the day, cost notwithstanding.
Except that in the Westcombe area where I live, filling in the WW2 gaps there are quite a few 50s/60s build houses with (I think) mainly Crittall windows. Hence the streets are a hodge podge already.
So what is it that we're trying to preserve? What it looked like in 1910? Too late. All those iron railing aren't coming back. If you think sash windows cost a bomb, look into railings.
1950? Those bombed out gaps are now filled in.
1970? But loads of people ripped out Victorian/Edwardian fittings before then.
thanks for the article on ray ban repair I am glad you liked the service , it was started 9 months ago and we currently get 100 emails a day hence the lack of communication, but we do make up for it in the overall service?
"After all we're not at any kind of risk of losing our World Heritage status, are we."
Well, we just could be - Dresden has just had its WH status removed for building a bridge a MILE out of town, so ripping out the Market and damaging the Park could well qualify us for ex-World Heritage status. Has anybody involved in these decisions run them past UNESCO?
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