Post from Judith Lanham, Secretary, The Hayfield Civic Trust

This may be open as a topic already but I would like to open/add to a discussion on local distinctiveness and the Heritage Environment Protection Bill that is currently under review.

Like many small towns and villages in Britain, Hayfield has no great building or site of momentous historical importance. It is an assemblage of many small features and domestic scale buildings from successive periods. We would not expect to draw on ‘Heritage Funds’ but we would like to see a stronger responsibility put on local authorities so that when work is carried out in the parish under whatever budget may apply, the work should be done with regard to local character.

Even though most of the village falls within a conservation area this does not seem to afford us much protection. We have an assortment of street signs. Recently we had to protest to get a missing fingerpost replaced with a wooden one because High Peak in future were replacing wooden signs with metal and so on.

I recently attended the Heritage Forum run by English Heritage and a number of groups raised the similar issues about ‘humble history’ and what to do if a community has just a few or maybe even one building of interest. We were all disappointed that the ‘performance indicator’ for street scene had been reduced to ‘cleanliness’. It was also disappointing but understandable that the professinal conservation officers felt there would be little support for this proposal because they would not have the manpower or financial resources to support it.

It is important that where heritage work is undertaken it should be done to the highest standard, but it is a shame that the hurdles are set so high that respect for local colour is abandoned altogether.