YOUR BRANCH COMMITTEE

ANNUAL SCHOOL 2004

WHAT THEY ARE SAYING ABOUT CONSERVATION IN NORTHERN IRELAND

"Conservation Areas
With only six conservation officers , expert advice is in short supply and records patchy.  None of Ulster's 58 Conservation Areas are the subject of an Article 4 Direction.

Listed Buildings
Following the great English resurvey of the 1980s, Northern Ireland is undertaking a second survey.  By the end of 2000 although 134 buildings had been recommended for listing another 304 had been de-listed."

'Blink & You'll Miss It: Northern Irelands Heritage in Danger.' SAVE Britain's Heritage 2001. 

"The Northern Ireland Housing Executive has awarded grants to demolish more than 1,000 traditional homes, based on a criteria that are severely biased against vernacular buildings.

Difficult and controversial planning issues are glossed over or dodged rather than tackled, with the unsurprising result that the regulatory touch is so light that it imposes little constraint."

'A Sense of Place: Planning for the Future of Northern Ireland'
National Trust, 2003

"The paltry fine of £5,000 for demolition of a listed building has been a laughing stock for many years--particularly when it was interpreted in Armagh some years ago as a maximum £5,000 fine for the demolition of an entire terrace within a conservation area."

'Heritage Review' Ulster Architectural Heritage Society, 2004.