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Peter Black and South Wales West Liberal DemocratsRepresenting Aberavon, Bridgend, Gower, Neath, Ogmore, Port Talbot, and Swansea |
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Statement: Priorities for the Welsh Historic Environment
January 24, 2012 3:30 PM
By Peter Black
By Peter Black
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Peter Black: Minister, on Saturday morning, I stood and watched as a grade II listed chapel near my home was, effectively, destroyed, first by fire and then by demolition experts seeking to make it safe. The chapel had been empty for the best part of a decade and had been subject to vandalism and to the elements. However, it still made a major contribution to the architecture and history of the community in which it stood. Its loss is not only sad, but tragic for those who value the heritage that we all enjoy, but which is rapidly vanishing from communities around us because such buildings are neglected or, in the case of the Customs House and Royal Buildings, which Bethan Jenkins mentioned, are deliberately demolished because the people responsible for them do not see their value. I would hope, therefore, that the Bill that you have promised us will start to address some of those problems. It is important that we re-evaluate the value of community buildings, look at how they can be preserved and seek new uses for them. Nobody is really doing that at the moment. Local authorities have some responsibility, but they do not have the resources, or, in many instances, the will to go about doing that. Cadw seems to be focused on the more historic buildings and sites such as castles, many of which were referred to in your statement. There does not seem to be any body that has a proactive role in going out and taking charge of those few remaining community assets and trying to bring them back into use, albeit perhaps a different use than that for which they were originally built. |
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I note that No. 7 of the aims and priorities for the Welsh historic environment sector listed in your discussion document states: |
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'We will continue to allocate grants to support conservation, but the focus of our grant giving will be action to help with assets that are at risk. Grants will also be directed to projects, which provide wider benefit, such as providing housing or community regeneration benefits.' |
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I think that that encapsulates exactly what I have just referred to, but I would be grateful if you could expand on how that will happen, what sort of resource you will be investing, and what responsibilities you will be giving to bodies to go out there and deliver on that for those chapels that are still lying neglected but have not yet suffered the fate of Libanus in Cwmbwrla and for other buildings in a similar situation. |
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