Salford Cathedral - using your loaf and not relying on plans

I was recently appointed to write a Statement of Significance for the Cathedral House, which is part of the Roman Catholic Salford Cathedral. This is one of those cases which demonstrates that in the absence of documentary information and original plans, you have to be a bit of a building detective and (yes I admit it) a bit of a nerd, drawing on previous experiences of similar building types and wider knowledge of architecture (in this case nineteeth century architects) in order to draw out the relative significance. I am afraid there is simply no substitute for really detailed inspection and experience. It won't do just to say that a building is Grade II* and ipso facto it has to be very special and that is its significance. Some things may not be what they seem.

Liverpool - World Heritage Site in danger

Yesterday UNESCO put Liverpool Maritime Mercantile World Heritage Site on the "in danger" list.  I have been reading the debate on various blogs and am pleased to see that it is not being reported any more as either "jobs" or "heritage", black or white. My uncle, who lives on the south side of the Mersey, is now fully engaged with the debate. Some good may come of this yet........

Tea and Tobacco in Liverpool

Liverpool - the City was unusual in having dual-purpose offices and warehouses. Once the main offices of Tetley and Company Tea Merchants, it also served as the offices of a tobacco importer and later a sugar refining company.

This week planning permission was granted for the change of use of a grade II listed former tea and tobacco office & warehouse within the heart of Liverpool's World Heritage Site to a boutique hotel. I was really pleased to be working with a new architect (new to me that is) for this project and produced a Heritage Impact Assessment for the architect along with a detailed Supporting Statement. Can't wait for the opening. One of the benefits of this change of use will be that more people will be able to see the amazing interior decorative plasterwork, with its scenes of tobacco harvesting, tea importing and orange harvesting. 

The Students Guild, Liverpool - plaster repair

This week I'm writing specifications for the repair of Sir Charles Reilly's Students Guild in Liverpool with help from Ornate Interiors, who have pointed out the problems with the friability of some early twentieth century fibrous plasterwork. I'll be specifying "Crystacal R" hard plaster for localised repairs in places subject to greatest wear and tear.  The building contains a fascinating mixture of moulded fibrous plaster, hard lime plaster run in-situ and wet lime plaster applied to laths for formwork to create domes and barrel vaults. The building dates from 1909-13 and was at the turning point between old and new methods of ornamental plaster fabrication.

Cast ferro-concrete was used to create some of the most elegant and visually lightweight staircases I have seen - oval and circular.  So beautiful, you can't fail to be amazed by them.

ICON Conference

Recent conference held by ICON Historic Interiors in Cambridge provided the most wonderful tour of interiors of colleges and university buildings dating from the 18th century.  A special treat to see inside the Senate House - very inspiring. Speakers covered subjects such as the restoration of John Linnell sofas, the use of Chinoiserie in 18th century interiors (which I thought was particularly fascinating), the restoration of Kew Palace kitchens (a subject close to my heart, since I was inolved early on with the restoration of Robert Smythson's Wollaton Hall kitchens) . Also managed to see the Corpus Clock, for which my colleague Tyra Till was the design consultant & project manager - it is a beast of a clock!

VAT on Listed Building alterations

The Chancellor George Osbourne last week introduced the proposal to scrap the zero-rating of VAT on listed building (consent) alterations.

I often used to advise people (in my local authority days) to apply for listed building consent for complete re-roofing, one of the advantages being that they could apply to the VAT office for zero-rating for this work. I am sure I was not the only one to do this and I don't know how successful they were in getting the work zero-rated, because the change was suppoosed to be self evident, but it worked for a while. We know that the system is crazy. This has been going on for decades and I have been dealing with it since 1987. Let's forget the moaning and debate and get an e-petition up and running, a well written one, to prevent this happening and not to undermine all our lobbying over the last 30 years. The petition I signed yesterday was not very professional.

Demolition of Historic Building in Conservation Area (3)

A good outcome of the NPPF is that it does remove the ambiguity over this issue (see previous posts). It places the emphasis fully on the process of assessment of significance and this will then lead the decision makers and professionals to follow one or other assessment - whether it generates "substantial harm" or "less than substantial harm", based on its significance.

Another interesting question that will need to be explored in case law is what is "public benefit". This is not as straightforward as it might seem as it doesn't necessarily mean public use. Housing does not generate a public use but the consequences of development of a derelict or brownfield site, a gapsite or a building which has been torched or which has many environmental health problems could have significant public benefit of different degrees.