Report Reveals Top Historic Buildings at Risk Need £65 Million Public Funding

English Heritage Launches Buildings at Risk Register 2007

Crossness Pumping Station, Belvedere Road, Bexley, Greater London. Run by volunteers but in need of extensive repairs A colossal pre-1918 airship hanger, the only one left in situ in Europe, a London pumping station by the famous engineer Sir Joseph Bazalgette, the world’s first iron-framed building in Shrewsbury, Soho Foundry in the Midlands where James Watt’s steam engine was made, and the evocative remains of a Medieval Abbey standing in the grounds of a functioning Benedictine monastery near the north shore of the Isle of Wight are among the grade I and II* listed historic buildings at risk which each need £1 million or more of subsidy to secure their future.

These are the nation’s most costly and problematic buildings at risk, needing a total of £65 million. Their plight has been brought to attention by English Heritage who today (Tuesday 24th July) launched their 2007 Buildings at Risk Register.

Chief Executive of English Heritage, Simon Thurley, at Battersea Power Station, London, for the launch of the Buildings at Risk Register 2007 Speaking at today’s launch, Chief Executive of English Heritage Simon Thurley said: "What makes these buildings expensive and difficult to revive is a combination of factors such as their vast scale, the fact that part of the site is often a structure which can only be preserved but will never have a beneficial use, such as the pit-head winding gear at Chatterley Whitfield Colliery, and in some cases also their inaccessibility.

"While the rising property market is making some buildings economic to repair, the outlook for historic buildings where the cost of repair is more than their value once repaired, is increasingly bleak. This is what we call the "conservation deficit".  Even though many of these buildings are capable of being restored to some form of beneficial use, including housing, it does not necessarily make them economic propositions for developers, organisations or individuals. In consequence, and because of their outstanding national importance, they each need a degree of public subsidy ranging from £1m to £25 million.

"These are some of the nation’s most monumental sites and buildings, redolent with history and human interest, beauty and grace. But compared to other buildings at risk, they present enormous challenges because of the huge cost of their repair. Even if they are fortunate enough to be taken on by a trust, no amount of goodwill or voluntary effort can make up for the fact that they need massive sums spent on them which are never likely to be recouped.

"English Heritage is the safety net when all else fails, essentially the social services of the heritage world.  We should be the best hope for the sort of buildings we are talking about today.  The Heritage Lottery Fund continues to give large grants but only public buildings are eligible and competition for their funds is likely to be stiffer in future.  So, while repair costs continue to rise, Government funding for English Heritage has reduced and therefore the purchasing power of our grants has shrunk by £19.6 million over the past six years.

Chief Executive of English Heritage, Simon Thurley, at Battersea Power Station, London, for the launch of the Buildings at Risk Register 2007 © Press AssociationLast year English Heritage offered £4.4 million to buildings at risk but this covered only 1.3% of the estimated total conservation deficit of all the buildings on the Register. Meanwhile building costs rose by approximately 4.4%.

Since the launch of the first register English Heritage has thrown every resource at its disposal at Buildings at Risk. Using the Register to focus attention on the most needy buildings, bringing owners, councils and other relevant bodies together, using our expertise to inform repair projects and small amounts of grant as a catalyst, we have removed 872 entries over the years since 1999 and met our target of removing 43.8% of entries from the 1999 Register itself as their futures have been secured.

Simon Thurley continued:  "The 2007 Register contains 1,235 entries. Over the past year 88 entries have been removed and 52 have been added continuing the overall trend of a steady fall in the number of buildings at risk. But increasingly, year on year, we are left with the hard rump of buildings which need large amounts of public subsidy. The total subsidy needed to bring all the buildings on the Register into repair remains, as it did in 1999, at around £400 million, but £65 million of that total relates to the entries we have highlighted today.

Wicker Arch and adjoining viaduct, Sheffield. Most of the viaduct arches are in use for workshops We call on the Government, and especially the new Secretary of State, to work with us to convince public funding bodies of the value of the nation’s heritage and that buildings like the ones we have identified today deserve a second chance.  If we fail to act today, the cost of saving these buildings will continue to rise and their decay advance."

Link to the Buildings at Risk pages

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Grade I and II* listed buildings and structural scheduled ancient monuments at risk needing £1 million plus of public subsidy to secure their future