Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Chairperson (Mr Butler): I welcome from the Institute of Historic Building Conservation (IHBC) Dr Joanne Curran, its Northern Ireland chair, and Mr Dawson Stelfox. I invite you to present your evidence to the Committee and then to answer any questions that we may have.

Dr Joanne Curran (Institute of Historic Building Conservation): Thank you for inviting us to give evidence. We are a professional body for conservation practitioners. We are people with traditional skills, such as architects, engineers and conservation officers. We exist to establish and develop the highest standards of conservation and to support heritage-led regeneration. We are a network of regional offices, of which Northern Ireland is one, and we have links with the Republic of Ireland. We host training and events and give advice on conservation.

Mr Dawson Stelfox (Institute of Historic Building Conservation): Good morning, members. Thanks for inviting us. I will briefly run through our views and opinions on the Dilapidation Bill, and we will then be more than happy to enter into a discussion or take questions. My background is as a conservation architect. I was involved in the submission made by the Royal Society of Ulster Architects (RSUA), although it covered slightly broader issues than those that we will talk about today. The two submissions are aligned, in that they have in common that we and the RSUA welcome the general thrust of the legislation. That is borne out of long experience of seeing the medium-sized towns of rural Northern Ireland in particular lose their sense of identity and heritage over the years, partly for economic reasons.

Years ago, I worked on the Dromore townscape heritage initiative (THI). For that initiative, generous grant aid was available through the Heritage Lottery Fund to building owners: in some cases, 50%, 60% or 70% grant aid was made available for doing work to refurbish buildings. The initiative was run by a strong local community group that was keen to get empty shop units and so on reused in Dromore town centre. The group found that the owners of unused and derelict buildings would not accept the grants because they were effectively holding on to the properties to see whether, at some stage, they could get them demolished, be allowed to rebuild them or even, in some cases, turn the land into a car park. That was in the centre of Dromore, which is a designated conservation area. Even with significant grant aid as a carrot, there was not enough stick for the group to say, "It is not acceptable to leave those buildings lying derelict in our town centre".

We spot a gap that the Dilapidation Bill will fill. Dangerous structures are already covered under building control legislation. If something is going to fall down at a risk to public safety, there is already legislation in place that can deal with that. To tackle buildings' general decay and disuse, however, there is no stick at the moment to put pressure on owners either to restore a building themselves or to put it on the market and sell it to someone who will. The thrust of our paper is that the stick is important but some carrots are needed in order to encourage people to rejuvenate such buildings. One carrot could be grant aid, but carrots are potentially more useful through the rating system, as carrots there would encourage people to invest in their buildings and bring them back into use.

The Bill is to be welcomed, but there are measures that could be added to it to reinforce its effectiveness. In particular, we think that there should be more incentive to restore small buildings in a town centre. We are not talking about restoring large buildings. Although we welcome the Bill in general, our paper outlines some concerns. By their nature, they tend to be quite pedantic concerns, such as concern about the meaning of one word in the Bill; Committee members will be used to that.

The risk is that the measures in the legislation will be used to bypass the normal heritage safeguards, which are enshrined in the planning laws. In conservation areas and in areas of townscape character, as well as, obviously, with listed buildings and monuments, there is a presumption against demolition. The risk with the Dilapidation Bill is that demolition becomes an easy option for removing dilapidated buildings. There is a mindset that tidiness is more important than heritage. An eyesore is therefore removed by demolishing it, rather than by restoring it, as the former results in a nice, flat site on which a car park or a new building can be put. There are plenty of safeguards in planning legislation against that. That legislation has been strengthened over the years, and, as I said, there is no right to demolition in areas of townscape character, in areas of village character and in conservation areas, as well as no right to demolition of listed buildings and monuments.

Clause 17 is the focus of our concern. The risk is that there are not sufficient safeguards in the Bill as it stands, and that could lead to the demolition of buildings. We have outlined three particular issues in our paper. If you want, Chair, I can summarise them.

The Chairperson (Mr Butler): Please do.

Mr Stelfox: OK. First, clause 17(1) requires the council to consult either its own conservation officer or the staff of the Historic Buildings Council (HBC). The requirement is to "consult", and that can mean a lot of things. It does not mean "take the advice of" or "follow the advice of", however. We view the word "consult" as a bit weak in those circumstances.

It is therefore about striking a balance. Will the Bill be used to overturn the safeguards in the planning Acts? That is where our concern is, because the assessment of an application for demolition has quite a high test to meet under the planning Acts. There are risks, however, that the Dilapidation Bill could be used to bypass the test. We therefore suggest that a bit more than "consult" go in under clause 17(1).

Secondly, clause 17(1)(a) states who in the council is to give that advice. The Institute of Historic Building Conservation came out of the local authorities' Association of Conservation Officers. It started out in that way. Twenty years or so ago, pretty much every council had a conservation officer, and most of them were dedicated conservation officers. At the moment, there are few dedicated conservation officers in local authorities. Often, ordinary planning officers — I say that not to be derogatory — are given the job of being the conservation officer. They have no special training, do not have the accreditation and are not members of the Institute of Historic Building Conservation. There are very few of them. There are two or three at most.

Dr Curran: There is one member.

Mr Stelfox: OK. We therefore suggest that there is not really sufficient expertise in councils at the moment to give good advice on striking a balance between the requirements under the Dilapidation Bill and under planning legislation. At the moment, councils will take professional advice from outside. For example, building control in Belfast City Council hired a specialist conservation-accredited structural engineer to advise it on its approach to the Bank Buildings, and you know what happened there. Councils often bring in external expertise. The way the Bill is at the moment, if councils were to do that, it would be at their cost. There are provisions in the Bill for councils to reclaim costs for doing works and other things to buildings. We suggest that, if the council feels that it needs expert advice and has to bring that in, it should be able to put that charge back on to the building owner, just as the building owner pays charges in other ways. That seems a reasonable way to encourage councils to take advice while making sure that it is not ratepayers who pay for it. Responsibility for the cost should go back to the building owner. I can expand on those issues later.

Thirdly, clause 17(1)(b) means that the council is to consult Department for Communities officers — historic environment division (HED) officers — but it is limited to consultation:

I will explain the difference. In the legislation, the definition of "heritage site" is pretty broad. It includes conservation areas, listed buildings and a broad sweep of heritage, but the definition of "historic monument" is tight. It includes only sites that are scheduled monuments under the legislation, of which there will be relatively few. At the very least, that requirement to consult the Department for Communities should include consultation on listed buildings as well, which is the bread and butter of HED's work. We are not sure why that has been left out of the Bill, but it seems to be a significant omission.

I will make a final point. Even though what is being potentially demolished may not physically affect a listed building that is close to it, in planning legislation, there is a definition of the "setting" of a listed building, which means things that happen around the listed building that could affect its character or its significance. At the moment, there seems to be no consideration of the setting of listed buildings or monuments in the Bill.

The points that we make are relatively technical, but they would make a significant difference to the legislation's effectiveness and strike a balance between regeneration and protection and demolition.

The Chairperson (Mr Butler): Thank you very much. You mentioned Dromore. I do not know whether you are aware of the situation in Lisburn. My office is in Bridge Street, which is a street of heritage.

Mr Stelfox: I am on the THI team.

The Chairperson (Mr Butler): It was done under the previous townscape heritage initiative. If building owners engage, there is huge potential if we get it right. Unfortunately, however, as you go up that street, you can see that, when you fail to get the right engagement with a site or building owner, that can spoil the investment. There was significant investment at the time from the council, and DFC was perhaps involved.

Mr Stelfox: There were pretty generous grant aid percentages paid to owners of those buildings who engaged in the scheme. You are right: where it works, it works well, but, where a building owner is reluctant —.

The Chairperson (Mr Butler): We have experience and learning. I am not so optimistic that the Bill will be able to tackle that problem. We understand the issue that needs to be sorted out. If you can visualise that street, do you see potential in the Bill to address the situation? I am not sure that it will.

You talked about getting the balance right between the carrot and the stick, and I know that there are complexities involving site and building owners. Some people will buy buildings as an investment and may not worry too much about them falling into a state of disrepair, but some people inherit them, and it can be a bit of an albatross for them if they do not have the money to do the work on them. Have you seen a model that works best for getting the balance right between carrot and stick?

Mr Stelfox: There are degrees to those things. There is one very successful example in Northern Ireland. In Sion Mills, existing legislation was used for a listed building. I think that it is the only case ever in Northern Ireland in which the full extent of the provisions under the Planning Act (Northern Ireland) 2011 were used. That building — the old stables in Sion Mills — was slowly going derelict, and, after years and years of trying to persuade the owner to restore it, the building was eventually vested by the council. It was transferred through a back-to-back arrangement to a local building preservation trust. It took on the building and restored it through grant aid that had already been teed up from the Heritage Lottery Fund and others. That building is now community-run in the centre of Sion Mills. That is a good example of the legislation's potential to work with grant aid, but the fact that I can give you only one example in the history of the existing legislation shows that that is a rare instance.

I thought that the Bill could work, because it starts to apply financial penalties to owners who are deliberately letting their buildings fall down. I agree with you that there are genuine owners who just do not have the resources to do things. Similarly, commercial realities mean that owners could spend a lot of money on the building but would not be able to rent it out or get it back into commercial use. That is where such things as grant aid and using the rates system come in.

The Chairperson (Mr Butler): The correlation between the change of use of a building is also key, because what happens on all our high streets has changed.

Mr Stelfox: That raises the bigger question about how town centres are made attractive places for people to live in again.

The Chairperson (Mr Butler): Do you mind if I jump in there? You are evidently over the existing legislation, and I want to see how it maps across. I have come across a push-pull situation with the certification of dilapidation, for instance. If a building is dangerous, councils and agents may enter into a dispute about whether it can be demolished. A structural engineer may have issued a certificate that states, "This building should be demolished", but, then, unfortunately, as happens, people get another certificate from someone else that states, "No, it does not need to be demolished. It can be restored". Is there anything that we can do? That results in a legal dispute that goes absolutely nowhere, and it ends up tying up the building.

Mr Stelfox: That is a tricky one. You are absolutely right. I have been in the situation in which I have had conflicting advice from two structural engineers. What I will say is that there are structural engineers who are accredited conservation structural engineers. They are used to dealing with listed buildings, old, rickety structures and things like that, and they have the experience to deal with them. That is not taught in universities. Many of the structural engineers who have qualified and are working would not have the first notion about what to do with a traditional building. The accreditation system works so that councils in particular can get the right advice. There are structural engineers who have been accredited by the conservation accreditation register of engineers (CARE) in Northern Ireland.

Dr Curran: There are four CARE-accredited structural engineers in Northern Ireland, some of whom are part of the Institute of Historic Building Conservation. I suppose that it is for designated council conservation officers to access that network and get the information in order to be able to make that decision, rather than sit with two reports that state different things. If at least one has accreditation, they will know that, whatever the cost might be, the building can be saved.

The Chairperson (Mr Butler): That will be useful, because, given the financial pressure to make changes and so on, someone has to make a decision at some point. Thank you for that.

Ms Finnegan: Robbie asked about lessons that have been learnt from other places. You have given an example from here in the North. Have you considered any international examples of where legislation has worked?

Mr Stelfox: There is no direct equivalent of the Dilapidation Bill. There are provisions in English and Scottish legislation, however. There is a booklet from Historic England that contains guidance on how to use the legislation. It is a guide on enforcement action to save historic buildings and is quite a chunky document. There is an equivalent guide for Scotland. England and Scotland have tended to refine existing planning Acts rather than introduce separate dilapidation Bills. They have refined that legislation, and it is a bit more encompassing than what we have in Northern Ireland under our Planning Act. They have gone down that route and used that legislation. Each council has also developed its own local legislation under the planning Acts. There, it is done in a much more active way.

It even extends to the celebrated case of the wonky pub in England from a year or so go. It was not a listed building. It was not protected in any way, but it was regarded as a local heritage building. The owners demolished it without permission and have now been forced to rebuild it completely. That building was not even protected by, if you like, the national legislation. It was, however, on a local list, which is something that the council had drawn up. There has been much more proactive use of the powers that exist under the planning Acts there.

The focus is on buildings of heritage merit being brought back into use. The Dilapidation Bill goes wider than that, because many of the buildings that it will affect are not necessarily buildings of heritage merit. As I read it, the Bill's focus is more on the regeneration of village and town centres by trying to rid them of dereliction and dilapidation. We welcome the Dilapidation Bill because how vibrant town and village centres are affects not just the people who live and work in them but the general state of their historic environment. If buildings are looked after, they will be invested in and maintained. We view that approach as being good because it is broader legislation than legislation that focuses on just historic buildings and conservation areas. Our concern, however, is that there will be adverse effects on conservation areas as a result of the drive for regeneration, because, if a building is not listed or protected, demolition and rebuilding will often be the easy option. It may also be the cheapest option.

Ms Finnegan: I appreciate your answer. That is useful. I will go further than that and ask whether there are examples from across Ireland and the rest of Europe?

Dr Curran: In Ireland, each county council appoints a designated conservation officer. Someone came to give us a presentation and told us about a success story from Ramelton in Donegal where county council conservation officers worked with local businesses on something a bit like our townscape heritage initiatives. They were successful in regenerating high streets in some Donegal towns. The difference in Ireland is that councils have designated conservation officers who help them make decisions. The conservation officers also have accreditation, which we spoke about with the Chair.

Ms Finnegan: Finally, the IHBC often talks about heritage as climate action. Do you think that the Bill helps embed that idea by prioritising reusing over rebuilding?

Dr Curran: The quotation that we always use is:

Our remit is to see the reuse of buildings, but that cannot happen at any cost. For example, if there is danger or risk to the community, it should not happen. It should, however, be the starting point with historic, listed and important buildings or monuments.

Mr Stelfox: The condemnation of existing heritage buildings has always been that they are cold, damp and leaky and that it is much better to knock them down and build in their place nice new buildings that conform to all the modern regulations. There is a huge amount of work being done now on how to upgrade historic buildings successfully. There have been lots of disasters, including what we have seen on the news about the failures with external insulation. A working party has been set up among the statutory bodies in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, on which our HED is represented. It has produced good guidance on how to upgrade traditional buildings to make them suitable. All the evidence shows that that generates much lower carbon use than demolishing them and starting again.

We will see an even greater thrust towards the reuse of existing buildings, and not necessarily historic buildings. Office blocks from the 1960s and 1970s will be repurposed and reused. The climate change agenda is going in the right direction by keeping existing buildings, but how that is done right is a complex subject.

Ms Finnegan: Thank you very much.

Mr Blair: Thanks to you both. The information that you have given us is useful, as is your knowledge of the heritage of our town centres. It is important that we refine and define any Bill that comes forward, given that it is better than the current do-nothing position, which you have acknowledged.

I will focus on two areas of the Bill in which I am particularly interested, but they are not the only two. The first is the carrot-and-stick approach. The Committee regularly talks about carrots and not always in a horticultural way, I should add. I am keen to know whether you think that the carrot here should involve some criteria. I was a councillor for a number of years before I became an MLA. I am involved in other community activities, and, many times, I have encountered those who are deliberately property-banking their asset until a later stage for value or change of use reasons. There are planning challenges there, which I acknowledge. We need to caution against using public funds to boost profitability, especially for those who may not need their profitability boosted by public funds.

I am asking you specifically whether you agree that criteria should be attached to the carrot. By the way, I fully acknowledge that there are people who are asset-rich but cash-poor and are thus limited in their means. You will have experience of such people.

Mr Stelfox: Yes. Planning Policy Statement (PPS) 16, I think, is about enabling development. There is a procedure under planning law where consideration can be made of the economic cost of restoring, in this case, a listed building. Where that is genuinely not viable, there is the potential for what is called "enabling development" to come in, by which you might be granted planning permission for something that you would not normally get permission for, such as building some extra development on non-zoned land in the area or something like that. That system is potentially open to misuse, so a lot of work is done on how you genuinely calculate whether there is what is sometimes called a "conservation deficit". When the cost of your restoration exceeds what the final value of your building will be, you have a gap there that is a conservation deficit. That can be filled by grant aid, as in the townscape heritage schemes; again, there are financial mechanisms there. It could be filled by offering a rates holiday for a time, for instance, or it could be fulfilled by enabling development, such as giving planning permission for something that you would not normally get permission for. There are mechanisms for trying to address that conservation deficit. However, it is important that there is a genuine conservation deficit, obviously, rather than, as you say, just boosting profits. The conservation deficit calculations allow for a developer to make a modest profit. Obviously, nobody will do something unless they make some money out of it. I think that it is capped at around 15% or 20%. There are mechanisms that, up until now, have been used under planning legislation that could be applied to something like that as well.

Mr Blair: Do you accept that there may well be property owners — property developers in particular but not solely — who were fully aware of the heritage and conservation value of their asset at the time of purchase and may not need public funding to rectify what has gone wrong and that the Bill will go some way towards tackling the property banking issue that I referred to where there is a conservation or heritage aspect?

Mr Stelfox: That is a good point. There is recognition in how you calculate a conservation deficit that basically says that, if people knowingly paid too much for it in the first place, they do not get recompensed for that. There are cases where people pay more than the site is worth because they have a long-term view and are property banking and think that they will get something in the future, so a fairly careful calculation has to be made in that regard.

Mr Blair: My second area of interest that I want to address today is challenges other than material building dilapidation. Do you have experience of dilapidation occurring in a building in a town centre, for example, because the owner has been simply unable to restore it for leisure or retail use due to planning restrictions or current infrastructure deficits? There may be no waste water infrastructure to turn a former financial institution — we know how banks have disappeared from our high streets — into something leisure- or recreation-related.

I have two really good examples, similar to what Robbie mentioned, in a town-centre location, where my office is. Other members will have the same. There are two former banks, both of which, I am glad to say, are planned for redevelopment, although one is dependent on planning permission. One is a listed building, and the other is not. The one that is not is cafe culture waiting to happen — arched, covered exterior, right on the high street — but it has lain vacant, as has the other one, for a worrying number of years, the main reason for which is that, as anybody who wants to convert to hospitality will find out pretty quickly, there is no waste water infrastructure to take the waste water across the road, where other buildings are better served. That is OK for multinationals, in many instances, but an independent local trader or hospitality provider hoping to invest in their area is less likely to have the means to put in that waste water infrastructure. Do you agree that there is an interdepartmental aspect to all of this and that infrastructure for the conservation of our heritage is also crucial, because change of use might be necessary?

Mr Stelfox: Yes. It is a particular issue, and it is possibly even worse for historic buildings and buildings in tight town centres because they do not necessarily have the land around them to be able to put in separate waste water infrastructure or even to separate out storm water and things. Obviously, that is a relatively recent issue, but it is a real, current issue when it comes to the reuse of buildings, particularly in tight urban centre populations. In our experience, change of use is slightly more flexible than that. HED tends to be flexible on the use of historic buildings. Where it comes in is if radical changes are needed to the building for that change of use to be accepted. Change of use can often be a bigger problem for neighbours in terms of noise, hours of use and things like that.

Mr Blair: Parking and whatever.

Mr Stelfox: Yes, parking issues. A change of use can bring with it those other problems. In our experience, however, HED has been fairly flexible.

Dr Curran: Yes, we have found it to be flexible, but the NI Water restrictions have been a stumbling block in a couple of our projects. In this case, it is small towns and villages taking on churches that are no longer in use to use them as community spaces and finding it difficult to link into the network. They may not get permission to do that even though we may have planning permission and listed building consent for them to do that. We have a couple of issues like that.

Mr Stelfox: Hilltown is one.

Dr Curran: Hilltown and Cloughey.

Mr Blair: The conversion of small schools is another one that could come further down the line.

The Chairperson (Mr Butler): As you can see, there is a lot of interest here. I do not know whether this was John's point, but it struck me that there is a shortage of skilled workpeople in specific areas. For instance, we cannot get thatchers, and there is no programme to bring them on. I know that this is not about thatch, but historic buildings and conservation areas are heritage and conservation for a reason, and a lot of it cannot be replicated now.

I want to keep this brief, because I want to bring other members in. Is there anything that you aware of to —.

Mr Stelfox: We could both talk to you for a couple of hours on that.

Dr Curran: The Construction Industry Training Board (CITB) has been good at setting up and doing training for that. It is very much leading on that, and we work with it on it. There is a shortage of traditional skills in lead work, stonemasonry, thatching — all heritage skills. Those skills need to be actively promoted.

Mr Stelfox: There have been various initiatives. The CITB and the regional colleges have been trying things. There is a fairly broad group that is coordinated by the historic environment division with all the professional bodies, trade bodies, the CITB and contractors. It is trying various initiatives. Part of that is about trying to get apprenticeship schemes to work well. That has been sporadic, however, as the requirements for apprenticeships are quite demanding for employers, and a lot of employers are reluctant to take on the responsibility of apprenticeships.

This applies across the construction industry, but, in traditional skills in particular, there is not enough flow of good-quality work to get specialist contractors in. In England and Scotland, there are main contractors who specialise in conservation work and can bring in apprenticeships and train people up because they have a continuous flow of work. In Northern Ireland, we tend not to have specialist main contractors. We have a lot of specialist subcontractors, but the bigger contractors tend to hire those specialist subcontractors in, which does not leave much scope for bringing on and training apprentices, so there absolutely is a skills gap.

The Chairperson (Mr Butler): Thank you. Members, we have another couple of evidence sessions programmed this morning, so please be as concise as possible.

Mr Irwin: Thank you for the presentation. How do you see the Bill? Will it be effective?

Mr Stelfox: It could be effective if councils, in particular, get resources dedicated to it and get the right expert advice. I hope that nobody takes offence at this, but I do not think that the expertise or capacity needed to take this on effectively is in the council planning offices at the moment. If it is going to come in and be used, there will have to be investment in council resources.

Mr Irwin: I have quite a bit of experience with planners; I deal with them regularly. You say that there are issues with planning. In my experience, however, planners consult the HED in every instance. In selling listed buildings or anything near listed buildings, the planners are quite rigid in accepting HED's response to those situations.

Mr Stelfox: It is about what planning officers and councillors accept. There has been a rise in cases where councillors have overridden HED's advice. Then, of course, there is the potential for it to be called in for the Department for Infrastructure to have a final look at it. That mechanism is there, and I see that happening. In this case, you can imagine that, coming from our point of view, we think that HED normally gives good advice, but there are cases where things are more balanced and nuanced. That is where you need, potentially, some external expertise to come in and make that judgement.

I imagine that economics will play an even more significant part in the dilapidation issue. Where does that expertise come in when you have a building owner or a developer who is making the economic argument? Who is assessing that economic argument? Councils do not have that expertise. If they need that expertise, they should be able to bring it in and, if necessary, charge that to the landowner. Councils should not take on the financial cost of that.

I imagine that councils will be nervous about proceeding down the route of actually doing the works to the buildings or taking them over. They will be worried about not being able to get that cost back. The mechanisms are there in the Bill for them to put a charge on the building and, eventually, recover the cost if the building is sold. Experience of the Planning Act (Northern Ireland) 2011, which is similar legislation, suggests that councils will be reluctant to go down that road. They could spend a significant amount of money for some years before being able to recoup those costs, if ever. The stick is important, but getting the carrots there to encourage owners to invest in their properties is equally important.

Mr Irwin: That will be difficult in some situations. I am aware of an old house with a tin roof in a village local to me. It is a single-storey building with whitewashed walls, and part of the back wall is [Inaudible.]

It is listed, which is why it has been lying like that for the past 50 years. In my eyes, HED is rigid. There are buildings that are well worth being listed, but there are others — it is a judgement call, of course — that make you wonder why they are listed.

Mr Stelfox: Yes, it is a judgement call. It is possible to challenge a listing. You can get expert advice and ask, "Does this building meet the criteria for listing?". There is a mechanism for doing that. I do not know the building that you are talking about, but my experience is that, in a lot of cases, there are solutions. They may involve selling it on to somebody who really wants to restore it or finds a way to restore it. There is a mechanism for change of use that can potentially bring in grant aid, depending on what the use of the building is. I accept that there are difficult and complex situations; I have spent 40 years trying to deal with them. Sometimes we get it right, and sometimes we cannot find a solution.

Mr Irwin: I am just seeing in one paragraph here that the average cost to councils works out at £7,300 per property, which seems low. That is according to 2018 prices. Today, after COVID, prices are probably up by 35% or 40%.

Mr Stelfox: Yes. It is difficult to predict. My understanding is that the first stage would be to go in and do works that stop things getting worse. Those are not things that will restore the building. They would be relatively simple things, such as replacing rainwater goods or fixing a few slates on the roof. The initial work that the council will do, if it cannot get the owner to do it, is those emergency or urgent repairs to stop slates sliding off into the street, for instance, or to stop water getting in and stop the building getting worse. I do not how those figures were arrived at.

Mr Irwin: I am not so sure myself. It would not do much, anyway.

Mr Stelfox: No. An average of £7,000 would not do much, but, sometimes, the simplest things, such as replacing a gutter or a downpipe that is pouring water into the property or fixing loose slates can be significant.

Mr Irwin: A stopgap job.

Mr Stelfox: Absolutely: they are a stopgap.

Mr Irwin: OK.

Miss McIlveen: You will be glad to know that most of what I was going to say has been covered. Thank you very much for your presentation, which was incredibly useful. It articulates my concern that the Bill could essentially become a passport for demolition; that would worry me. I will take up the offer in your paper to send further information about council conservation officers. Do they tend to be planners, or do they sit in building control or elsewhere in the council?

Dr Curran: They sit in planning.

Miss McIlveen: They are primarily planners.

Mr Stelfox: You make a good point. Building control officers hold some of the knowledge about dangerous structures, but I will say again — I work with building control officers every day — that building control officers receive practically no training in historic buildings. There is a man called Joseph Birt who started out in building control in Downpatrick but had an interest in historic buildings and was the historic buildings adviser to all the councils. He has left that role — he is now chair of the Historic Buildings Council — and, as far as I know, that role has not been replaced. People in building control have expertise in building structures, but they have no particular training or expertise in conservation works. There is a skills gap in the ongoing professional training of building control officers, particularly if they are going to be involved in making judgements on dilapidation as in the Bill. We might follow that up, as you said, with a bit more information on the skills and accreditation of the equivalent officers in Britain and in the South, because there are now dedicated conservation officers in every council there.

Miss McIlveen: William touched on HED, which does a tremendous job, but its approach is a bit rigid at times, and some of its requirements are cost-prohibitive. As a consequence, developers or those who own properties perhaps step back, by virtue of which the property falls into disrepair and then beyond repair.

Mr Stelfox: As William said, some of the judgements are subjective. There is always a bit of wriggle room. I have been in private practice all my life, so I have spent a lot of time arguing with HED heritage architects, but I agree with the general thrust of that. Building owners need expert advice on their side. If that advice is good, HED will respect it, and, with the criteria in the legislation, there should be an objective judgement: does the building meet the criteria? Will what you propose to do to the building adversely change its character? It can be difficult, but, in most circumstances, if you present the arguments correctly, including the economic ones, HED will listen.

Dr Curran: In those cases, we often find that a conservation professional has not been involved. There is always a middle ground in some way and a solution to be followed through. For the building owner and HED, that can be the conservation professional, but also, if there were conservation officers in the council who could guide on that, that would often result in a successful compromise. We found it most useful when those people were involved so that the judgement did not have to be made on two extremes.

Mr Stelfox: The officers in the council do not need to be new people with new salaries; it is about providing training to the people who are already there. The professional bodies, such as the Institute of Historic Building Conservation, the Royal Society of Ulster Architects and the engineers, offer training. There is quite a bit of work going on with Construction and Procurement Delivery to embed the training into the central Departments. There is not the same work going on in the councils, but the training is available. We are not suggesting that the councils need to employ a new person with a new salary. There is definitely a skills gap there, and training of council officers is needed, particularly if council officers are going to implement a Dilapidation Bill.

Miss McIlveen: Thank you.

The Chairperson (Mr Butler): William, just because I like you, have you got a wee one? Make it a wee one.

Mr Irwin: You talk about extra training for planners, but, in my experience, they accept the consultation from HED, and the planners rarely make that decision.

Mr Stelfox: At the moment, they are only consulting HED on scheduled monuments. We suggest that that should be extended to listed buildings, but, for the buildings in conservation areas, there is no mechanism in the Bill to consult HED. It is within the council.

Mr Irwin: It is not in the Bill?

Mr Stelfox: It is not in the Bill.

Mr Irwin: It is common practice.

Mr Stelfox: Not for unlisted buildings in conservation areas. HED will quickly say that that is not its responsibility. On an unlisted building in a conservation area, the decision-making is purely for the council.

The Chairperson (Mr Butler): One of the fears is that the Bill uses the term "may". There is no "must" in it. The discrepancies may come from the council's appetite.

Mr Stelfox: Yes.

The Chairperson (Mr Butler): You will have assessed that there is significant interest in the Bill on the Committee, and the team are hungry for more information. Thank you very much for spending so long with us today. I thank Members for those useful questions, which will certainly form part of the Committee's output.

Mr Stelfox: If you are happy, Chairman, we will follow up with more on training for conservation officers and professional development.

The Chairperson (Mr Butler): That would be useful. Thank you very much for your time.