With over 600 designated throughout Scotland and a staggering 9,800 in England, Conservation Areas afford protection to the crème de la crème of our built heritage and environment, for which there is seemingly no direct market. With the designation owners’ property rights are restricted. Changes to the external appearance of buildings and choice of materials limited and the cost of altering and maintaining buildings to a certain standard is in many if not most cases increased. The policy directly imposes a cost on individual owners and occupiers, but all in the name of a greater public good, which recent surveys suggest 92% of the population supports.
unsympathetic alterations causing the loss of traditional architectural features … loss of front gardens to parking … lack of co-ordinated or poor quality street furniture and paving … traffic domination and cluttered pedestrian environment … loss of traditional shopfronts
[Problems which Conservation Areas are designed to overcome]
So how can it be justified? Can it be purely on the grounds of a positive external heritage effect? And what if the social benefits exceed the private costs of maintenance? Is there some intergenerational inequality, whereby residents today pay the costs for future generations to perhaps enjoy? Is there a case for additional support – for these areas will also have more listed buildings with additional development restrictions than non designated areas, in the way that farmers get subsidy to farm wildlife. Environmental subsidies are justified because markets fail to protect landscapes, wildlife and countryside, for as the rural saying goes, “you can’t eat the view.” Well the jury is out on market failure it seems and I see no sign of incentives for householders any time soon. Continue reading The Conservation Premium
