Heritage and Naming Rights: What's in a Name?

Is the name of a building part of its heritage? The Guildhall in Southampton, a grade II listed building, has been renamed the O2 Guildhall Southampton, to the consternation of some local residents. The focus of historical building conservation and listing is (unsurprisingly) on the material fabric of the structure. Yet the name can have special significance for the local community. We see this most starkly in sports stadia. In 2011, Newcastle United renamed their stadium the Sports Direct Arena, in a sponsorship deal with the sports clothing company, a move which some supporters described as "abysmal" and "a nightmare".

Names are, after all, a vital part of our heritage and identity as individuals, families, communities. We define ourselves by our names and the move towards commercial sponsorship of sports arena and entertainment venues, while making perfect commercial sense, sits uneasily with our innate need to define ourselves according to who we are rather than who funds us. And at its worst, renaming can just make us look silly...Spare a thought for the supporters of Merthyr Town.

Demolition of Chartist Mural in Wales Angers Local Community

A 1970s underpass mural celebrating the 1839 Chartist uprising in Newport has been demolished to make way for a shopping centre, prompting an angry response from the local community.

Despite a vocal campaign by local pressure group "Save Our Mural", the Welsh heritage protection body, Cadw, decided that the mural did not have sufficient special architectural or historical interest to justify listing (the key criteria under the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990, a process that would have saved it from demolition. Cadw said: "The quality of the building to which the mosaic is attached is poor and the underpass itself has no intrinsic design merits. [T]here [is] no specific association between the location of the mural and the Chartist uprising." The decision illustrates some of the key controversies with the listing process. The focus of the decision-maker is on the material rather than social value of the structure at hand. Here, Cadw seems to have looked through or past the mural itself and focused on the architectural quality of the structure to which the mosaic adheres rather than assessing the mosaic's significance on its own terms. Underpasses throughout Great Britain contain a large number of murals; they are, in a sense, a living part of our communities, at least prompting some sort of reaction from local people. The mural itself seems to have been overlooked. To say that there is no specific association between the location of the mural and the uprising seems disingenuous: the Westgate Hotel in Newport, where some Chartists had been imprisoned and to where the Chartist protesters marched to free them, is only about 200m from the underpass. The other interesting aspect here is the unresponsiveness of the local council to the feeling of the community about the mural. Economic development, in the form of a £100 million shopping centre development, has triumphed. Of course, not every mural, structure and building can be protected. Ossification is the danger of over-enthusiastic protection of everything from the past. Has the balance here been struck appropriately?

Skateboarders and Village Greens (continued)

The attempt to preserve the Southbank Skatepark (see earlier post) has hit a snag.  The attempt to achieve protection through ensuring the site is designated as a 'village green' has been rejected by the local council. 

The Council's legal basis for rejecting the claim is that the right to apply to have land designated as a 'village green' is excluded if it is the result of a 'trigger event', including planning applications.  That must surely be challengeable; the whole point of having these legal mechanisms in place is to provide for protection mechanisms when sites are under threat.  Has the law failed the skateboarders here or has the law been misapplied? 

Wandering Lonely Through A World Heritage Site?

Being a World Heritage Site is a prized status.  The Lake District national park authority and local councils have decided to push for the Lake District to be included on the list of World Heritage Sites.

This is as much a push for publicity and support as anything; the Lake District has been on the UK's Tentative List for Inclusion on UNESCO's list of World Heritage Sites since 2001.   It is a fascinating example of a 'cultural landscape' though.  The claim that it has 'Outstanding Universal Value' (the key criterion for designation) rests on four themes: its rural landscapes and farming traditions; the prominence of the Lakes in the development of the Picturesque aesthetic; it's claim to be the cradle of British Romanticism; and the landscape conservation movement.  

There's a long time until the 38th session of the World Heritage Committee, in June 2014, when the next inscriptions on the list will be made.  Plenty of time for publicity and lobbying.

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?