Aimée L Felton 2012

27 cultural significance (Dann, N and Wood, S. 2004:p140).Whilst fundamental conclusions identified that almost all organisations, whether heritage focused or not (both including both commercial and non-commercial), were falling short of a best practice approach. Areas for improvement were identified as the need to ground cultural significance and minimum intervention at the heart of the management strategy and amputate the process from budgetary targets. Maintenance is a cyclical process, it can be dependent on condition, age and significance of historic fabric, but it can also act as an activity that is undertaken as a reaction to that condition, this is reactive maintenance (Worthing, D. 2002:p16). Planned maintenance is more a proactive approach, not anticipating failure like reactive maintenance, but endeavouring to repair or replace building elements at the most relevant time. This strategy is more structured and systematic, requiring not only time but a high degree of judgment and knowledge of the building, historic materials and diagnostic skill. It is often debated (MoH, 2004. Devlin, 2005. Dann and Cantell. 2005) whether the required level of diagnostic skill base is available in the UK.This is due to so few professional bodies having specific accreditation schemes related to conservation, which Kindred (2004:p21) cites as a missed opportunity within the construction industry, when the very nature of maintenance work requires a wide cross section of specialists from different disciplines to achieve the very best results. Limited training of contractors regarding conservation techniques, traditional skills and appropriate material choices, is cited as the primary barrier to a wider base of skilled operatives within the UK and leading towards a more coherent implementation of maintenance (Forster, A and Kayan, B. 2009:p219).Whilst Devlin suggests examples of better practice THREE Chapter Three - Literature Review Aimee Felton