§ Baroness Byfordasked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether English Heritage should have asked permission from the owners of Grade II listed buildings before photographs of their properties were taken; and [HL2709]
Whether they will instruct English Heritage to contact every owner of a Grade II listed building to obtain explicit permission to put photographs of those buildings on a website; and [HL2710]
Whether they approve of the intention of English Heritage to place photographs of Grade II listed buildings on the website called images of Britain. [HL2767]
§ The Minister of State, Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Baroness Blackstone)English Heritage undertook a comprehensive and successful series of regional press campaigns to publicise the Images of England project. It made it clear shat it was its intention to photograph every building on the statutory list for the project. There are 500.000 listed buildings in England and information on them is already in the public domain. The Government are committed to improving access to all public information and have no plans to instruct English Heritage to write to owners.