Bath heritage defender

Planning, 5 September 2008

The sight of tower cranes above the Georgian architecture of Bath Spa railway station perfectly illustrates the twin challenges facing the city - reversing economic decline while preserving a world heritage site for future generations. Luckily, Tony Crouch affirms that he is up for the challenge in his new role as the city's world heritage manager.

His planning background serves him excellently, he feels. "Planning allows you to see the context and the wider picture. Your job is weighing a variety of different views before plotting the best way forward. That is so much of what we do here because we get a very big divergence of schemes."

Crouch joined Bath and North East Somerset Council in 1995 and cut his teeth as a development control planner before joining the conservation team. "Bath is a living, thriving city. But it is also a place that people want to visit, mainly because of its historic connections. The challenge is bringing it forward in a sympathetic manner," he explains.

Following this summer's UNESCO conference in Quebec, a team of advisers will be visiting the city in November on a fact-finding tour after concerns were raised about developments taking place in the city, in particular the Western Riverside and the Dyson design school schemes.

Crouch is upbeat about the visit. "The tower cranes have come to Bath for the first time in maybe 40 years and that inevitably leads to growing pains. So it is right that the system is tested. There is nothing to hide and I think that we are working in a sensitive manner," he maintains.

"I would challenge UNESCO to find anywhere else in the world where developments pass through greater scrutiny in terms of planning applications. After so many levels of inspection, what comes out of the other end is robust and extremely democratic," he argues.

Crouch insists that a famous tourist city belongs to everybody and that high levels of interest have been matched by huge improvements in access to information. When a strikingly modern extension was first proposed for the city's Georgian Holburne Museum, for example, the application generated 1,400 representations and drew comments from all over the world - almost enough to crash the computer system.

He wants to encourage developers to rise to the challenge of proposing schemes in Bath: "I am very much in favour of modern development, but I think that it has to accept its context. You do not have a blank sheet of paper and you cannot have architects who don't understand the city simply designing something and plonking it down. You don't get much more locally distinct than Bath. Everything is almost in the same stone, of a fairly uniform height and language. That gives you a very strong context in which to operate."

Crouch is not a supporter of the modern regeneration trend that seems to demand landmark buildings as part of every development. "Bath is more about ensembles, so you do not have shocking signature buildings everywhere and you don't need them. A lot of the clever blend is about the town planning and the layout. The city should not be afraid of its uniformity because it is a key characteristic," he adds.

He regards the forthcoming UNESCO visit as a chance to show off the English planning system as much as anything else. English Heritage is also welcoming it, he says, and has produced new guidance alongside a DCLG consultation paper on management of world heritage sites.

"There is a raft of world heritage stuff out at the moment and we are extremely well prepared nationally. We have some good models to show them. I would be surprised if they weren't impressed by the systems. They might not like individual applications - there's an element of subjectivity in there - but the systems are robust," he says.

Crouch has been frustrated that the city's world heritage status has not previously been a key material consideration when fulfilling government housing targets. He welcomes the fact that the DCLG circular and English Heritage guidance lock world heritage into the UK's planning system for the first time.

"What we are asking for is joined- up government at a higher level. There needs to be recognition that if we are being asked to take effective stewardship of a world heritage site and follow the normal growth agenda that other cities would, something has got to give," he claims.

Crouch points out that Bath receives no extra money towards the stewardship of its heritage. "We run a team of seven full-time conservation officers. Councils do not receive a fee for listed building applications so we take a financial hit for all we get. Neither do we get any extra cash for being a world heritage site. So where people would expect a higher standard of street furniture and street cleansing, it is a financial burden that we have to carry," he says.

"The sums are not recognised in government spending assessments. All of the government funding programmes have targeted regeneration efforts towards rundown areas, which is understandable, but at the same time it leaves us with a real problem," he complains.

Increased pressure to develop may pose a risk to heritage, but Crouch is confident that "the country won't lose its appetite for historic areas and sites". Cultural resource management is a growing industry, he believes, and he feels privileged to be a part of it.

CV
Age: 44
Family: Partner and two children
Education: BA (Hons) in town and country planning, University of the
West of England; MSc in historic conservation, Oxford Brookes University
Interests: Competitive running, surfing, motorcycling, restoration of
historic houses and vehicles
2008: World heritage manager, Bath and North East Somerset Council
(BANES)
2005: Heritage and environment manager, BANES
2001: Team leader - projects, partnerships and funding, BANES
1995: Planning officer rising to senior conservation officer, BANES
1988: Various public and private sector posts in the South West