HC Deb 26 May 1972 vol 837 cc1869-85

2.45 p.m.

Dr. Tom Stuttaford (Norwich, South)

I am grateful for the opportunity of speaking about the conservation of our ancient cities. I am grateful not only because I happen to represent one, being one of the two hon. Members for Norwich, but also because I do not think that this is a local problem, therefore. it is not local gratitude that I display, for this is a national problem.

Indeed, in Norwich we are probably rather more lucky than a great many other county boroughs in that we have had sympathetic consideration for conservation from different councils since the war. We have had excellent planning advice and we have had amenity societies which have been particularly vocal. Fortunately, their cries for help have normally been heard by those in command.

This is a national problem, and financial considerations alone make it certain that this must be considered at central Government level. When we consider that Bath, one historic city, takes in receipts from tourists about three times what the Government spend at present on conserving all ancient cities in this country, one realises how very low in the Government's order of priorities conservation still is.

The cost of our national heritage, our historic cities, must therefore be borne nationally because these cities are of national, if not international, interest. It puts a totally unfair burden on the local ratepayer to expect him to forgo his new dustbins or street lighting in order to have a mediaeval house preserved for the country or, perhaps, a Georgian assembly hall.

I had always assumed that the central Government were interested in this and that it was a priority consideration for the Department of the Environment, and I thought that they were reacting to the rightful demands of society. I was therefore surprised on 11 th May when I received a letter from the Department containing this rather disquieting statement: The Secretary of State has no programme for the preservation and improvement of ancient cities in the sense of a phased set of measures which he requires cities to take; nor is any series of discussions taking place with such cities with a view to supervising their work of preservation or guiding their steps. The writer then goes on to explain his views in respect of the oversight of older buildings and their alteration and demolition, and the approval of schemes of conservation.

But that statement seems to be at variance with the views expressed by the Secretary of State in the foreword to this week's report of a group of experts, published under the title "How do you want to live?", which conclusively shows that people need to have a sense of identity with their surroundings and that they are acutely conscious of their urban environment, and that nothing but harm will follow if we expect the majority of our fellow people to suppress their individuality by living in a city looking as if it had been made out of a set of child's Leggo bricks. There is now a very definite public attitude to their own environment both urban and rural, and this public attitude will soon become a public demand for political action at the very highest level.

I have no doubt that in reply my hon. Friend will speak about a system of grading of buildings and will say that the system of grading buildings has saved many fine buildings. But it is no good grading a building if one takes that building in isolation. We need to preserve the atmosphere of cities, their nooks and crannies and individuality. It is no good preserving one Georgian house in isolation from its environment. Nothing can look more stupid, very often, than a bit of past history preserved in the middle of a roundabout, or something like that. It bears as much relation to conservation as a stuffed bird in a museum bears to natural history.

I pay credit to what the amenity societies have done. They have done much to emphasise the need for conservation. They have also harnessed public opinion and pointed out just what is needed in the way of environment.

What we need, too, is a system whereby a local community can seek some protection from the local planning department which is perhaps motivated by idleness, lack of interest or rate hunger. We must also see that local citizens can be protected from the profit-greedy developer. What is needed is a realisation that what goes up in an area is just as important as what comes down.

It is true that the Minister can call in any plan if public outcry is loud enough, but all too often the public outcry comes too late. Often the public have been taken by surprise and so the sole arbiter of the future of a district is sometimes only someone in the local planning authority.

If a developer wants a building and the local planning authority agrees, the neighbours of this new building have no appeal whatsoever. The Minister will, no doubt, tell me that he will always respond to an outcry from the local Press or the local amenity society. However, they have not got this right. They have no right to see him. They have to acquiesce silently in the destruction of the neighbourhood whether by demolition or by creation.

This will become increasingly important because as councils become bigger the contact with the environment may become less. The order of priorities may change. Norwich spends £100,000 a year on the preservation of ancient buildings. There is no saying that a new local authority will want to spend that sum of money or that it will all be spent in Norwich and not in the county. Surely in this instance the City of Norwich should have the right of appeal to the Minister.

Not always will the Minister see a local environment group or a local amenity society. It may be assumed that they have access to the Department through their Members of Parliament, but only last month there was an instance in my own constituency where the Minister clearly said that he thought that no useful purpose could be served by discussions with the local amenity society because this should he done at local level.

Once again we come back to the problem of finance and whether the problem of these cities is a national or local problem to be decided in a city hall.

There are one or two other specific points that I want to ask. First, in the discussions presided over by Lord Kennet 'he very definite suggestion was made that an historic towns corporation should be set up, a corporation which could oversee all those towns of historical interest and importance in the world of art and architecture. That suggestion seems to have been lost for ever. Certainly we have heard no more about it.

Secondly, the suggestion was made that grants must be much more freely available for the tidying up of areas. At present it is the easy way out for a local council to take a bulldozer and go right through a whole district, designate it as a slum and clear the lot, and then redevelopment grants are available. If a responsible attitude is taken and an effort is made not to destroy an area but to tidy it and introduce modern domestic architecture so that people will live again in the city centres, no grant is available.

I should particularly like to mention a part of Norwich known as Norwich over the River. It is a small area just to the north of the river which contains a multitude of fine buildings. It has been allowed to fall into decrepitude over the last 25 or 30 years. Grants are not available for much of this work, but they should be. There is in this area one house which I know my hon. Friend the Minister is aware of, a fine 17th century house designated as a grade 2 building. It was only on the provisional list, not on the statutory list. Before it could be transferred from one to the other, the Minister had been appealed to by those who wanted to demolish it, and the building has now come down.

This is not unique. There are other buildings like it, but slowly, little by little, we are whittling away our inheritance from the past. We must look at every building and certainly not rely upon mere phraseology to allow a building to be destroyed. This building was only on the provisional list because the customary time had not elapsed for it to go on the statutory list. It clearly says that when these lists were first drawn up the only reason that a building would not be transferred from one list to the other list after a lapse of time was an administrative one. In this case it was not an administrative reason but a planning reason. There was no reason whatever why the Minister should have allowed that building to be destroyed without further inquiry.

When we look at the graded buildings we must be immediately struck by the fact that it is not good enough just to grade them; some funds must be made available. At the moment no funds are necessarily made available because the building is newly scheduled. There are no funds to keep out the rain or trespassers. If money is spent in this way there is no way of reclaiming it. There is nothing to stop the dishonest or nearly dishonest developer buying a scheduled building at a "knock-down" price and then letting it slowly fall down. He is taking no positive action to destroy it, just letting nature and gravity do their work. At the end of the time he will come forward to the inquiry and say "It has cost far too much to save the building. It is a pure waste of funds." He may then get permission to pull it down when he himself has occasioned its destruction slowly and by stages. Some thought should be given to the preservation of a building once it has been scheduled.

We have to think in terms of tax incentives. It may well be that if one is fortunate or unfortunate enough to inherit or acquire an ancient building, additional expenditure will be needed. Perhaps this expenditure could in some way be eased by changes in tax legislation.

Let us think of the Common Market and what effect it will have on this country. Whether we like it or not, the Common Market will have some effect. It is certain that society will become more industrialised over the next 10 or 20 years. There will have to be some shift in preservation and conservation to fit in with what is happening on the Continent where they see conservation in terms of areas and not individual buildings. They realise that urban environment is where, regrettably, most people have to live and that they deserve a reasonable way of life as well as the rural people. We must, therefore, see that a strong and coherent policy is adopted to give these areas high priority. If we are to clear the remains of the Industrial Revolution and the squalor left behind, we must make sure that we do not clear away the examples of historic interest which still remain.

These problems of preservation will increase in the 1970s and 1980s. For the authorities to wash their hands of these problems at this time and say that they have no central policy and that the preservation of ancient cities is not their concern would be to abdicate their responsibility at a time when the potential threat is greatest. I cannot believe that the letter which I quoted was intended, and I hope to hear the true state of affairs today.

3.0 p.m.

Mr. Patrick Cormack (Cannock)

I am most grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, South (Dr. Stuttaford) for raising this subject and making such a powerful plea. I endorse everything he has said. We ought, however, to pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment. His heart is certainly in the right place, and his policy for bypassing historic towns in the right one.

In referring to that letter, however, my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, South, underlined the need for a co-ordinated policy. Unless we have a comprehensive strategy for urban development there will be very little left by the turn of the century in many of our historic towns apart from the individually distinctive buildings which we know are safeguarded but which in isolation, as my hon. Friend pointed out, do not breathe the atmosphere of the place.

There are many examples of terrible development. We can think of the City of London and of the way in which the surroundings of St. Paul's have been desecrated. We can think of the Ns ay in which Parliament Square at this moment is being threatened by unthinking people who do not consider the consequences of their actions. Very often it is lack of sensitivity and restraint and a thoughtless disregard, sometimes on the part of avaricious and philistine developers car of blinkered local authorities. But this is a national problem and my hon. Friend was right to emphasise that point.

My hon. Friend referred to the paradox that tourists are flocking in, bringing with them nearly £500 million a year, coming to see the glory of this country which is so often typified in our great ancient buildings and fine historic towns and cities. Yet so much is threatened at this time and we do not have a co-ordinated policy to deal with the situation. One might be forgiven for parodying Sir John Betjeman and saying: The old town's glossy face-life of 1963 Has left for contemplation not what there used to be. How true that is in so many of our fine old towns and cities.

This is a question of prorities. We talk so glibly these days about the quality of life. What do we mean by it? Surely we ought to mean many things, and one of the things at the top of the list ought to be a proper concern for the preservation and enhancement of dignified, civilised urban surroundings. Yet what happens? Many hon. Members will recall the article on the City of Bath which appeared in The Times a few weeks ago which had that awful headline "Acres of Georgian rubble". My hon. Friend has referred to the fact that Bath receives from tourism, three times more than the Government are giving for the preservation of all historical buildings.

There has been recently the story of the rape of Wheathampstead, where a fine small complex of buildings was done away with before anyone could do anything about it. Our regulations need tightening up where this sort of thing is likely to happen, on a big scale as in Bath or a small scale as in Wheathampstead.

We have our priorities absolutely wrong when we spend about £1 million a year on historic buildings and yet cheerfully spend hundreds of millions of pounds on Concorde which, with its sonic boom, may bring greater problems for our towns and cities. That is not an argument against Concorde, which I am delighted that the Government are supporting.

On an Adjournment debate one must be careful about referring to legislation for fear of being ruled out of order. But I am disturbed by the fact that under the Local Government Bill the Government are considering transferring responsibility for historic buildings and conservation areas to district councils, taking it away from county councils which have accumulated expertise and wisdom in dealing with these matters.

What we really need—I say this with no disrespect to my hon. Friend the Minister for Local Government and Development—is one member of the Gov- ernment who will have a total responsibility for the national architectural heritage, someone whose only concern is to make sure that what we have inherited is properly maintained and that where development takes place it is in the spirit of the area. I took the liberty of writing to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State on this general subject a week or two ago. I pointed out that far too often, where there is conflict between the developer and the conservationist, the developer wins. What has been happening and is happening in Bath and other places underlines the urgent need for more stringent supervision of the plans of local authorities. It is not a question of making sure that the most important buildings are preserved intact, because that is relatively easy. It is a question of the preservation of whole areas of individually unremarkable buildings which collectively have an architectural harmony which should be valued and preserved. That is what gives most cause for concern.

I suggested to my right hon. Friend that we might consider nominating national towns in the same way as we have national parks. I do not want to pursue the analogy too far, but Bath, Winchester, Chester, Norwich and many others of our fine ancient cities are just as much part of England and part of the glory that we should preserve as the Peak District, Exmoor or other areas of great natural beauty.

Therefore, I very much hope we shall have a sympathetic and understanding reply from my hon. Friend, one which will indicate that the letter was sent out in a fit of absence of mind.

3.6 p.m.

Mr. Ernie Money (Ipswich)

I, too, congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, South (Dr. Stuttaford) on initiating this debate. Although I agree with him whole heartedly that we are talking about a national problem which should be dealt with on a national basis, as an East Anglian he will perhaps forgive me if I take three examples that are fairly close to us in our part of the world. It so happens that in today's edition of the East Anglian Daily Times there are three news stories dealing with three different facets of this question, which are interesting indications not only of what needs to be done but of what can and is being done in the circumstances.

The first story deals with the constituency of my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Eldon Griffiths), where a conservation plan is now being put forward for the whole of the middle part of that most beautiful medieval borough. Most of the mediæval town, together with the historic approaches and abbey precincts, is to be included as a designated area. The proposals will serve to preserve one of the finest of all East Anglian towns. That is a good example of the kind of step my hon. Friend was concerned with. He will agree that in his own beautiful and historic city one of the happiest initiatives was what was done at Magdalen Street on the initiative of the Civic Trust. I hope the Government will give encouragement to such improvement schemes.

Although my hon. Friend is entirely right about the preservation of mediæval areas, I hope that thought will be given to the preservation of industrial archaeology as well. This is a matter about which some of us are very concerned.

The East Anglian Daily Times also refers to the improvements of a different type at Colchester, where the intention is to give a better view of the Roman walls of the borough. I hope that more thought can be given and more money made available for improvements of that kind. It is a matter which has always been given great attention in certain Continental cities for the benefit of visitors and the appearance of the townscape as a whole.

I should like to express the most heartfelt thanks to the Department of the Environment for what is announced as the lead story in the East Anglian Daily Times today, the long-awaited and entirely welcome news that the Department is to provide my constituency, a third historic and beautiful East Anglian town, with a bypass, which will take the horrors of too much traffic, and in particular. too much heavy transport, away from the town and safeguard the future of the borough in that way.

I end by quoting the words of the East Anglian Daily Times that: The old regimental tune of the Suffolk Regiment used to be 'Speed the Plough'. They must have known.

3.10 p.m.

The Minister for Local Government and Development (Mr. Graham Page)

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, South (Dr. Stuttaford) for giving me an opportunity of reporting to the House the progress which the Government are making in the preservation of the historic towns. Two issues in this matter have been identified by my hon. Friend: first, whether this matter should be under the control of the central Government or local government; secondly, the question of central Government financial support for the local preservation of our historic treasures.

On the question of control, it is wrong to look at the strictly legal aspect and ignore the co-operation which takes place between central Government and local government. I will come back to that aspect in a moment. On the question of finance, it is wrong, too, to look only at the cash handed over by central Government by way of grants. In the maintenance of historic buildings that is only a very minute part of the story. Central Government rate support grant discharges about 60 per cent. of local expenditure, and the historic town is not restricted in any way in its expenditure on its historic buildings and the historic character of the town—indeed, it is ens couraged so to spend by the present Government. So our general system of local government finance results in a substantial contribution by the taxpayer to the ratepayer towards the preservation of the historic towns.

I say without fear of contradiction that the present Government are doing more for the preservation and conservation of our historic towns than has ever been done before: Government financial backing for 34 historic towns carrying out town schemes proposed by the historic buildings Councils; Government payment for bypass roads for 84 historic towns to keep the trunk road traffic out of the historic high street; doubling the Government grant to the historic buildings Councils; creating an entirely new conservation grant; adding 8,000 a year to the list of historic buildings to be protected. This is a formidable programme for the protection of our heritage and it is one that I am convinced the public want us to carry out.

One of the most satisfactory aspects is that as the Department of the Environment we carry out the programme as a complete plan. The construction of the roads, the traffic on the roads, the planning of town schemes, the listing of buildings and all the rest now come within the responsibilities of one Department. My hon. Friends the Members for Norwich, South, and for Cannock (Mr. Cormack) urged that this should be more a central Government responsibility, but I say at once that although we can and do make possible from my Department the comprehensive plan or overall scheme, the preservation of the historic town in all its facets, we rely upon local authorities for the administration, for the exercise of discretion locally and for the extent to which the opportunities which the Government offer are seized. Indeed, I was rather astonished when my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, South, seemed to he asking me to say that the local authority of which he himself was a distinguished member for a considerable time was unfit to look after its own town——

Dr. Stuttaford

I do not think I said anything of the sort. I said that funds were essential for any local authority to carry out this work and that if funds were not available nothing could be done. I made a point of saying that my own local authority was very much better than local authorities in a great many other places.

Mr. Page

I am happy to leave the discretion for taking the opportunity given by the Government to a local authority such as Norwich and many others which have done splendid work in the preservation of their historic towns. It would be wholly contrary to the concept of local government as the present Government see it if there were to be direction by the central Government as suggested by both my hon. Friends in the preservation of those towns.

Mr. Cormack

This really is the central issue. There are some local authorities such as Norwich and Winchester which are superb but there are many others which have seen their area devastated. Is there not a case for some stronger central Government participation to prevent this?

Mr. Page

No. I take issue entirely with my hon. Friend on this. The local authorities are capable of doing this in their own towns. One point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, South was that it is no good grading a building if it is taken in isolation, and I agree with him entirely. If the central Government are to have control over the welding of that into the whole historic town they have to take over much more than controlling historic buildings; they have to take over the housing, roads and schools of that town —everything. The task of preserving historic towns involves all local government functions and it is right that the local authority should be left to work of its own initiative in doing so. We look to local authorities to do this.

Mr. Money

Will my hon. Friend ask his Department to look at one thing? As land agent to the Government it has considerable opportunities for patronage in the form of supplying Government offices. I would ask him to ask nis Department to look at some of the historic town houses in some of our boroughs and cities to see whether it could not take over more of those for its own purposes or for the provision of Government offices, as a preservation force.

Mr. Page

That is a very constructive proposal and I assure my hon. Friend that I shall look at it. That does not alter the fact that we believe that local authorities can look after their own towns and look after the preservation of the history and the historic treasures in them. The constituency of my bon. Friend the Member for Norwich, South is a good example and it is certainly not the only example. It is one of the best examples of an authority acting with enthusiasm and competence in the conservation of its ancient city. It has seven conservation areas, 380 Grades 1 and 2 listed buildings and 250 Grade 3 listed buildings. In a week or two it will have a total of 800 to 900 Grades 1 and 2.

Dr. Stuttaford

Would my hon. Friend agree therefore that it is a city which, above all else, should be bypassed so that the traffic is kept out of it?

Mr. Page

Yes. I was coming on to deal with the bypass. My hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich mentioned this and I am glad that we have been able to come to a decision to build the Ipswich bypass.

The figures I have mentioned about listed buildings in Norwich are exceptionally high for any town. The Government and the council have shared the cost of restoration of several of those buildings. My hon. Friend picked out one occasion when the central Government disagreed with the local amenity societies on the preservation of two buildings. I think he was referring to Nos. 17 and 19 Golden Dog Lane. I can tell him that the central Government were brought into this at an early stage. It was not that anyone in local government overrode what was our view in the Department. Had these buildings not been provisionally listed but fully listed we should have still have come to the same decision to allow demolition. This is a difference of opinion between my Department and my hon. Friend on the value of those buildings.

If I may again use Norwich as an example, two very special things have occurred there recently. First, last month a town scheme was set up under which 130 buildings qualify for grant. Norwich will contribute £7,500 per annum for five years and the Government will contribute £7,500 per annum for five years. An owner who requires assistance will be able to get a grant for repairs to his historic building within that scheme if he pays half the cost. We want to see more of these town schemes, with a 50 per cent. subsidy for repairs to historic building, found pound for pound by the Government and local government.

The second special event in Norwich is the phenomenal scheme for 28 redundant medieval churches. The Norwich City Council is taking over the freehold of those 28 churches and is setting up a company to which it will lease the churches. The company will maintain the buildings and will ensure their use for appropriate purposes. This is a most imaginative and praiseworthy scheme, perhaps the most imaginative scheme of this sort undertaken by a local authority in the preservation of our architectural and historic treasures. When I say "the most imaginative" I am perhaps speaking too soon. Bath has been mentioned, and the tunnel at Bath is one of the most interesting schemes for preserving an historic town. Having mentioned by-passes, perhaps I should say in this case, "If you cannot bypass it, then underpass it".

Let me mention the road schemes in Bath to which we are committed and in the other three of the four towns which go with Bath—York, Chester and Chichester. These schemes will reduce the traffic in the towns and make pedestrianisation possible. The amount being spent in the schemes to which we are committed and which are being carried out in the four towns is around the £25 million to £30 million mark, of which £20 million to £25 million will come from the Government. That expenditure is being made in four historic towns in order to take the traffic, noise, vibration and congestion out of narrow streets which were never intended to take it. That is a really sound investment in the prevention of injury rather than pouring money into curing the damage caused by the traffic. Let us get the traffic out of the towns and preserve them in that way.

Those are measures to prevent the unintentional demolition of our historic towns and buildings. But we must also take precautions against intentional demolition. Here we have three lines of defence, or perhaps plans of attack. The first is the continual resurveying of the country and the consequent addition of buildings to the statutory list of protected buildings. Perhaps it is not generally recognised that we have 140,000 listed buildings, and it would be rather expensive if, as my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, South wanted, we were to subsidise each of them. What would happen would be that we should not list so many buildings.

Those 140,000 buildings and others are surveyed at the rate of 16,000 a year. The result is a net addition to the list of listed buildings of 8,000 a year. An application for demolition of a listed building can be granted only after my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has been told about it and given the chance to stop it. So there is co-operation there between central and local government.

Secondly, by vigorous administration of the existing law—that is, that one cannot demolish a listed building without the consent of the local planning authority and the concurrence of the Secretary of State —we have halved the number of historic buildings lost each year. A few years ago the figure was 400 lost each year. Last year it was only 203. One may say that it is 203 too many, but when the list is being increased by 8,000 a year I think it is fairly good to keep demolitions down to a figure of 203, and, indeed, it is reducing each year.

Thirdly, in this battle against intentional demolition we shall shortly be putting more buildings in the same category as listed buildings in regard to the prevention of demolition. These are buildings which, in a conservation area, the local authority considers to be necessary for the character of that area. We therefore have quite an armoury for the prevention of demolition of historic buildings, and the weapons are partly in the hands of the local authorities and partly in the hands of central Government.

I do not believe that anything better could be done by some historic towns corporation. My hon. Friend referred to this as having been advocated by Lord Kennet. He was in error. The Preservation Policy Group led by Lord Kennet did not recommend an historic towns corporation. It discussed it and in its report came down against it.

I have mentioned the question of the intentional demolition of historic buildings. From what my hon. Friends the Members for Norwich, South and for Cannock said, I think they must have forgotten that there is power under the Town and Country Planning Acts for local authorities to acquire neglected listed buildings compulsorily. There is power to go in and take them, and if the object of the owner of a building is to get permission to develop and he lets his building become neglected with that intention, it can be acquired at minimum compensation without any compensation for the development value.

I believe it is of the utmost importance that the preservation of historic buildings should be firmly wrapped up with the preservation of the historic town and that it is the local planning authority which, as I have said, is concerned with housing, highways, schools, museums and the rest, which can make the total appraisal of the situation and take decisions with knowledge of all the factors. That is why I said that I think town schemes are valuable. The Historic Buildings Council has developed this concept of the town scheme, of picking out outstanding groups of property. Through this it is possible for central and local Government to help the repair of a building which, while not outstanding individually—not one historic building standing out such as my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, South mentioned—in a group is of importance.

Joint grants are now given for this purpose over a period of years and an allocation is given to owners of historic buildings, particularly those in the core of an historic town. There are now 34 such schemes, including towns from Plymouth to Berwick-upon-Tweed, from King's Lynn to Totnes, from Winchester to Wisbech, and all this is to be supplemented shortly by a new conservation grant. This will be made to assist local authorities, voluntary bodies, and individual owners, if they so require, to preserve and enhance the character and appearance of a conservation area. The amounts of grant will, I admit, be fairly modest but their uses will be wideranging—environmental improvement, repairs, conversions, adaptations and so on. It is a pump-priming operation particularly aimed at getting a conservation scheme off the ground and regenerating an area which deserves a little more than preservation as a dusty museum piece.

Let me put on record once again the figures. We have 232 historic towns identified as such. We shall protect and enhance them. Of these, 84 were badly traffic-struck; 16 have already been relieved of trunk road through traffic and 68 will be similarly relieved by the early 1980s. We have 34 town schemes providing grants for tackling outstanding groups of buildings in historic towns. There are the grants for the maintenance of listed buildings to which we are adding and the grants for buildings in conservation areas. There are 140,000 listed buildings, and we are adding to them at the rate of 8,000 buildings a year.

This is neither the end nor even the climax of the story. I can add one matter which was overlooked by my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, South when he spoke of tidying-up grants. We have Operation Eyesore which meets exactly the sort of case of which he was talking, where we are concerned not with bulldozing down a slum clearance area but with tidying up an area which is an eyesore.

We shall ensure an increasing investment in our heritage in this way, increasing not only in money value but in what is perhaps more important, the expertise of constructive conservation, with, I sincerely believe, increasing encouragement from the public.