Heritage in Syria: Endangered by War?

As the world waits for some sort of international response to the Syrian chemical weapons attack, UNESCO will no doubt be anxiously considering the implications for heritage in Syria, including six World Heritage Sites. 

The very nature of most material heritage is that it needs money, time and care to preserve it for future generations.  The Director-General of UNESCO, Irina Bokova, said earlier this year, that “destroying the inheritance of the past, which is the legacy for future generations, serves no purpose except that of deepening hatred and despair and it further weakens the foundations for cohesion of Syrian society.”  UNESCO, the Syrian population and everyone who cares about protecting heritage will be hoping that Syrian sites do not suffer the same fate as those in Iraq and Afghanistan.  In the UK, the Chilcott Inquiry (set up to examine the decision by the British Government to go to war in Iraq) has heard from heritage organisations about the catastrophic impact of war on Iraqi cultural heritage.   In terms of the legal framework of heritage protection, the UK is still not a signatory to the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict and its two Protocols of 1954 and 1999.  There seems little prospect of the UK signing the Convention any time soon.  Let's hope that cultural heritage protection features as a factor in the response to the atrocities that have taken place in Syria.

The Moo Man

There's a great independent film on limited release at the moment called, The Moo Man.

The tender film is a documentary about an organic dairy farmer called Steve Hook, who produces and sells raw, unpasteurised milk from his farm in Sussex.  Although it's an observational documentary rather than an overtly political piece, the point that comes through is the impact of economic and legal developments on the lives of dairy farmers throughout the country.  The milk industry was deregulated by the British Government through the Agriculture Act 1993 (which broke the buying power of the Milk Marketing Board).  The impact on rural heritage of the re-introduction of free market forces to the milk industry has been massive, with the buying power of the supermarkets forcing farmers to leave the industry in droves, even from farms that have been passed down through many family generations.  Here's an interesting take on the changes to the dairy industry, written by a dairy farmer.  And here are some personal stories of those who worked for the Milk Marketing Board in Norwich.

Is this over-sentimentalising what is, in effect, simply economic development and change?  Maybe.  But we should see heritage not just in terms of the archetype of country houses and World Heritage Sites.  Heritage is about what each generation passes on to the next and how we, the current generation, value and protect what has been passed to us.  Not all of that heritage is formally protected by law; indeed, some of its destruction is faciliated by the law.  Are we really doing enough to protect the countryside, and those who live and work in it?  Long live all the Moo Men who have to battle to keep their industries alive.

How to Bypass a Community

The Government has announced that the A47 Norwich Northern Distributor Road is being fast-tracked so that it could be open in less than three years.

Two interesting points here, from a heritage perspective.  First, economic development has trumped community and environmental concerns about the impact of the dual-carriageway.  The case for the road rests on the boost to the region from an improved infrastructure supporting projects such as Norfolk's emerging offshore energy industry.  The case against stresses the environmental damage that will result, including, "The impacts on bats and barn owls [which] give rise to the summary assessment score of large adverse."

What impact on 'heritage'?  Well, the Council says that, "Listed buildings are likely to be subject to only minor adverse impact related to visual and aural impacts of road building and operation. The historic parklands will suffer a greater degree of adverse impact caused by severance and road operation."  Here's the link to the full report.  
However, the impact on less obvious (and less tangible) community heritage receives little consideration.  Most obviously, there seems to have been little account taken of how local people feel about the impact of such a development on their communities.  The Business Case for the road glosses over this, noting only that the road will run close to "urban fringes typically consisting of relatively modern residential suburbs of rather uniform visual character."  Reaction from some of the affected local communities and environmentalists has been anger and dismay at the way in which economic development has trumped natural heritage and local community feeling. 
The second point is about the process of consultation.  The Government has designated the scheme as a Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project (NSIP), under the Planning Act 2008.  Section 33 of that Act states that NSIPs can go ahead without needing to go through the normal procedures for obtaining planning permission.  This has caused great consternation amongst local people, who feel that the Government is riding roughshod over their opinions and concerns.  
What substance is there to the Government's much-vaunted localism agenda, including making the planning system more democratic, when local communities are so easily bypassed?
  
   

Skateboarders and Village Greens

London's South Bank is a cultural haven, home to the National Theatre, the British Film Institute, Tate Modern, Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, the Royal Festival Hall, Hayward Gallery and so on.  Lurking in a darker corner of the area, in the undercroft of the Southbank Centre is a skatepark strewn with graffiti, used by skateboarders for over forty years.

The site is under threat.  In March, the SouthBank Centre unveiled £100 million development plans to transform the Brutalist building and relocate the Skatepark.  Jude Kelly, the centre's artistic director, proposed building a new skatepark nearby but this was opposed by skaters who say they value the improvised nature of the space under the arts centre's brutalist architecture.

The campaign to save the Skatepark has gathered pace, uniting the unlikely combination of the National Theatre, English Heritage and the skateboarding community.  One interesting part of the campaign is the application by the campaign group Long Live Southbank to have the site given protected "village green" status under section 15(2) of the Commons Act 2006.  Under this provision, anyone can apply to the commons registration authority to register land as a 'town or village green' if "a significant number of the inhabitants of any locality, or of any neighbourhood within a locality, have indulged as of right in lawful sports and pastimes on the land for a period of at least 20 years".  The site seems, at first glance, to be far outside the the archetypal village green, but the High Court in March 2012 held that a tidal beach was capable of being a 'village green'.  Ouseley J noted that section 15 is not limited to a "conceptually traditional green...The law has always been more concerned with the character of the use than with the physical characteristics of the land over which the usage occurred." (R (Newhaven Port and Properties Ltd) v East Sussex CC [2012] 3 WLR 709, 721).

In a separate legal development, Lambeth Council has approved the application  by the campaigners to have the site listed as an "Asset of Community Value" under Part Three of the Localism Act 2011, making it a 'material consideration' when the planning authority hears the application for planning permission.

This is a fascinating example of how the law can offer some protection to a heritage site that has acquired cultural meaning not through architectural significance but through folklore, energy, youth, sound and passion.  

[Interesting also to note the the Southbank site includes the Waterloo Sunset pavilion, named after song by the Kinks.  And here's a link to one of their fitting songs: The Kinks - "Village Green Preservation Society".]

Welsh Medieval Laws Back in Wales

Following on from my previous post about controls on the export of cultural artefacts, one of the first medieval manuscripts written in Welsh has returned to Wales having been in America since the 1700s.

Here's another aspect to the relationship between law and heritage: the ownership and protection of legal documents that are in themselves 'heritage'.  In this case, the long, private ownership of the document seems to have led to great deterioration of the manuscript's condition.  Fortunately, the National Library of Wales acquired the funds to buy it, meaning it will now be stored appropriately and preserved.  

Who Owns Jane Austen?

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a piece of literary heritage that is headed for the USA must be in want of an export licence.  American Singer Kelly Clarkson has bought a ring owned by Jane Austen and wants to take it home, but the British Government has imposed a temporary export bar.

Here's another way in which the law plays an important role in the definition and ownership of material heritage.  In the case of the ring, the Government's decision to bar export is based on the centrality of the object as a piece of British literary history.  But there are interesting questions flowing from this: who decides what objects to bar from export?  In England and Wales the task falls to the Export Licencing Unit (ELU) of the Arts Council.

The ELU's work brings into sharp relief tensions between competing interests in the ownership of heritage objects, which the ELU's guidance for exporters makes clear:

The purpose of the export control is to give an opportunity for the retention in this country of cultural goods considered to be of outstanding national importance. The system is designed to strike a balance, as fairly as possible, between the various interests concerned in any application for an export licence: the protection of the national heritage; the rights of the owner selling the goods; the exporter or overseas purchaser; and the position and reputation of the UK as an international art market ("UK Export Licensing: Procedures and Guidance for Exporters of Works of Art and Other Cultural Goods", 2013)

This is not the only object to be barred from export.  The government has also issued three other export bars, including one on an archive of letters belonging to Major James Wolfe, who became a national hero after his death at the Battle of Quebec in 1759 which saw Britain drive the French out of large parts of Canada. The 232 letters are valued at £900,000. A bar was also placed on the export of a collection of paintings, writings, charts, photographs and drawings documenting a 19th century British exploration of northern Australia valued at £4.2m, and a £5m single-seater Bentley racing car that once belonged to pioneering racing driver Sir Henry Birkin.

But does the system of export regulation inevitably bow down before 'market forces'?   Do the rights of legal owners inevitably trump the heritage claim of the nation-state?

Norwich and Norfolk Heritage

The city in which I live, Norwich, has a wealth of interesting historical buildings.  Each September, the Heritage, Economic and Regeneration Trust (HEART) organises the Heritage Open Days for Norwich and beyond.  This year there will be 208 free events, including open buildings, guided tours and walks, exhibitions and performances across Norwich, Thetford, South Norfolk, Broadland, Great Yarmouth and further afield.  These are great ways of seeing some of Norfolk's hidden gems.  Really looking forward to finding out more about Norfolk heritage.  For more information, click on the link http://www.heritagecity.org/hods/index.htm