Planning (Ecclesiastical Exemption) (Hansard, 15 July 1994)

§ Mr. Brooke

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales and I have today laid before Parliament an order under section 60(5) and 75(7) of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 defining the future scope of the exemption in England and Wales.

As foreshadowed in my reply to my right hon. Friend on 17 December 1992, Official Report, column 370–71, a measure of exemption will be retained only for those church buildings which are covered by denominations' own arrangements for the control of works, where those arrangements satisfy our code of practice. Statutory procedures already exist for the Church of England; other denominations which are in the process of setting up arrangements are the Church in Wales, the Roman Catholic Church, the Methodist Church, the Baptist Union of Great Britain, the Baptist Union of Wales and the United Reformed Church. Buildings of all other denominations and faiths will from 1 October 1994, when the order is due to come into force, be fully subject to normal listed building and conservation area control.

Where the exemption is retained, its scope will be reduced. Subject to what is said below, it will apply in future only to buildings whose primary use is as a place of worship, and to objects or structures attached to their exterior or within their curtilage to the extent that these are 790W not listed in their own right. Where such objects or structures are listed in their own right, they will be fully subject to normal listed building control. My right hon. Friend and I came to the view that this was the most appropriate method of demarcation, taking into account the need to minimise duplication of control with the internal systems of the denominations concerned and, in relation to tombstones, the concerns expressed about possible inconvenience for the bereaved.

To ensure reasonable parity of treatment between exempted and non-exempted bodies, we propose directions to bring within conservation area control tombstones, memorials and monuments not covered by the ecclesiastical exemption but below the current control limit of 115 cu m. To minimise any practical inconvenience, this extension of control will relate only to tombstones and so on erected before 1 January 1925.

Special arrangements will apply to cathedrals of the Church of England. In this case, the exemption will cover the cathedral itself and buildings, objects or structures which are located within an area designated by me after consulting the Cathedrals Fabric Commission for England and which fall within a precinct indicated by the Commission under the Care of Cathedrals Measure 1990. It will also cover places of worship elsewhere within the precinct, and tombstones elsewhere within the precinct which are not listed in their own right.

The new arrangements will be summarised in planning policy guidance notes, to be issued in due course. Details of the exempted denominations' procedures will also be circulated to all local planning authorities. Plans showing the designated English cathedral areas have been sent to those local authorities concerned.

As mentioned in the previous statement, our intention is to monitor these arrangements and review them after two years.

The present exemption is also to be continued for the time being for certain categories of ecclesiastical buildings, mainly belonging to the denominations mentioned. My officials are writing to the bodies concerned to invite them to consider how works to such buildings should be controlled in future. These categories include buildings within Church of England peculiars, buildings of religious communities, school and other institutional chapels, and buildings of certain Scottish denominations within England and Wales.