Guernsey’s Development and Planning Authority, (DPA), has suggested some big changes could be on the horizon when it comes to protected buildings.
It comes as the DPA says it has taken the “pragmatic step” to re-designate a Second World War structure in St Saviour as a Protected Building rather than a Protected Monument, which it was originally designated as earlier this year.
The DPA says the unanimous decision at a recent Committee meeting will provide “greater flexibility for the owner while safeguarding the important heritage of the property”.
The authority says this forms part of a wider piece of work which the DPA is exploring, which aims to assess whether “ad-hoc” listing of buildings and monuments is still appropriate.
Under the current approach, properties are occasionally added to or removed from the Protected Buildings list when planning applications are submitted, or when a property is put onto the market.
This approach was originally introduced in 2012, when the then Environment Department was criticised for not having procedures in place to enable the ad-hoc protection of buildings with sufficient special interest that were under the immediate threat of development.
However, the DPA says several recent listings which have come post-purchase of buildings, or have been triggered by planning applications, have been “considered unfair” by the Committee and the wider States and public alike.
For the meantime, officers have been instructed to bring all future ad-hoc listings to the Committee for approval.
Deputy Neil Inder, President of the DPA, said: “I can understand people’s frustrations with this. You buy an old house, you want to restore it, so you do all the right things and submit a planning application, and then seemingly out of nowhere, it’s listed.
“It might have been done for a good reason in the past, but it doesn’t seem fair anymore. So we’re going to look at this and see what it would take to change it. We can’t promise it’ll be easy, but we have to explore it. We can’t be punishing the very people who are trying to improve our heritage buildings.”