CONTEXT 188 : JUNE 2026 29 INFRASTRUCTURE working on projects also frequently reach out to us, which we very much welcome. Sometimes these buildings are already local-listed or in a conservation area, but in many cases neither protection is in place. Most of our listing applications are submitted in response to a specific threat, usually a current or imminent planning application, and in most cases without a threat Historic England will not take an application forward. In Scotland the opposite is the case, and Historic Environment Scotland will not list if there are ‘advanced development proposals’ for the site. There is no clear guidance as to what constitutes ‘advanced development’, and in several recent cases HES has concluded that it regards a building to be listable but is not able to proceed because of a development proposal, even if that proposal is still relatively embryonic. We would very much like to see this changed. It is now 30 years since English Heritage organised a public exhibition and consultation, ‘Something Worth Keeping?’. Held in 1996, this drew attention to the first 189 post-war buildings then listed. It asked for public comments and found that opinion was largely in favour of protection. At this point English Heritage set up the Post War Listing Steering Group (PWLSG), of which I was a member along with academics, architectural historians, architects and engineers (including some who had been designers of some of the buildings under consideration). Much excellent research was carried out by English Heritage staff and external consultants. They reported to the group and looked at specific building types with an end-date of 30 years prior to the research work. This was in line with the 30-year rule, whereby a rolling 30 years cut off was set for listing buildings at Grade II. Buildings under 30 years old can be listed only if they are at Grade I and II*, and under threat. Because the PWLSG was disbanded in 2002, even the most recent of these research projects ran only to 1978. It has been speculated (by Jeremy Gould in an article entitled ‘The Enigma of Post-war Listing’) that although the PWLSG project was curtailed ‘ostensibly on grounds of cost and an assertion that the work was well-established’, this may have been ‘mainly because the new director of English Heritage and the ministry found the flood of recommendations too controversial’. Gould also wrote that ‘Although since 2002 further buildings have been added to the list, the thematic rigour seems to have been abandoned and post-war listing has reached stasis’. This assertion seems unfair. More recently Historic England has done excellent thematic work on postmodern buildings and office buildings, among other projects, and struggles to balance competing research needs, most recently prioritising listing in heritage action zones. However, it does seem that even after so much time has elapsed, and so many postwar buildings have been successfully conserved, the Department of Culture Media and Sport does still regard post-war listing as far more controversial than is surely the case in terms of popular opinion. This anxiety is demonstrated by the high proportion of post-war cases among the very small overall proportion of Historic England listing recommendations overturned by the minister, including Stansted Airport (Foster + Partners, 1991); Shoreditch Fire Station, London Borough of Hackney (London County Council architect’s department, 1959–65); and, most notorious, Dorman Long tower, Middlesbrough (1955–56). The Hayward Gallery, part of the South Bank Centre, was recently listed after 35 years of previous refusals to follow Historic England advice. (Photo: Morley von Sternberg) THE LISTING PROCESS IN ENGLAND
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