7 May 2008 : Column 264WH
Thatched Roofs (Planning Policy)
10.59 am
Sir George
Young (North-West Hampshire) (Con):
I welcome this opportunity to raise the problems faced by many owners of
thatched cottages and houses when the time comes to renew their roofs and they
apply for planning consent. There are a number of players in the game: the
home owners themselves, the thatchers who do the work and the farmers who grow
the straw. The planners and English Heritage are the referees, and the man who
makes the rules is the Planning Minister, whom I welcome to the debate. There
are also many spectators: the visitors to and fellow residents of the many
traditional villages in this country with thatched cottages, of which there
are many in my constituency. They form part of our cultural heritage—a
heritage threatened by the very rules designed to safeguard it.
Thatched roofs need to be replaced every 15 or 20 years. Until the last part
of the 20th century, the choice of style and material for replacement was left
to the owner and thatcher. Replacement was evolutionary, reflecting the
availability of materials and the thatcher’s craft and style. In the past 20
years, intervention and control have begun to halt that evolutionary process.
The balance must now be shifted away from conservationists, who have tried to
freeze-frame the process, and back to owners and thatchers.
English Heritage now insists on a policy of like for like in materials and
thatching styles for listed building consent. A cottage thatched with
traditional long straw must be re-thatched with traditional long straw.
However, that straw is becoming scarce due to changing farming practices. The
problem is now critical as a result of the poor harvest last year.
Re-thatching with any straw—whether long straw or combed wheat reed, as in
Hampshire—is impossible, because there is none.
Farmers can increase their crop yield by replacing cereal straw for thatching
with other crops. The rising price of wheat makes that shift yet more
imperative. English Heritage seems reluctant to recognise the changing trends
in cereal farming and will not accept alternative thatching materials, which
are indistinguishable from traditional materials to most of us and last much
longer. Its so-called guidance containing the like-for-like policy is being
slavishly followed by planning officers.
My interest derives from a lady outside Andover who wrote to me thus:
As you are a highly respected MP with a good reputation
for trouble-shooting, we are hoping you may be able to assist our somewhat
desperate situation.”
I shall précis the next bit of the letter, but I wanted to read that first
bit out in full. The lady’s home had been re-thatched in 1992. She applied
to have it re-thatched again with combed wheat instead of long straw, as she
was simply unable to get long straw. Planning permission was refused, although
two years before, she had received listed building consent to re-do the
adjacent barn in combed wheat, and other nearby properties, including listed
buildings, use combed wheat. She continues:
“It would seem the decision of English Heritage to
dictate that long straw must remain is ill-timed since there is none
available at all this year... All we ask is permission to preserve our home
in this way, since the availability of any long straw is impossible to
7 May 2008 : Column 265WH
obtain. We have lived here 25 years and now we see how the dips and gullies
are appearing all too soon. Combed wheat straw is a far more durable method
than traditional style, and English Heritage should be proud to see that
there are some of us who fight for this way forward.”
The English Heritage guidance reflects the Government’s planning policy
guidance note 15, which was published in 1994. I quote from paragraph C.29:
“Thatched roofs should be preserved, and consent
should not be given for their replacement by different roof coverings...
When roofs are re-thatched, this should normally be done in a form of thatch
traditional to the region”.
However, Hampshire must now import its traditional thatch from Poland, leaving
a substantial carbon footprint. Locally grown alternatives, such as water
reed, are forbidden.
Shortly after the guidance was issued by English Heritage, it was challenged,
not just by thatchers, who rightly argued that theirs was a dynamic and living
craft that should reflect the availability of local materials, but in an
article in The Building Conservation Directory:
“This issue has been made more complex by the
imminent removal of the only two wheat varieties suitable for thatching and
remaining on the UK National seed varieties list. It is illegal to trade and
plant any seeds not on the current National list; to overcome the problem
growers have been planting Triticale for both combed wheat reed and long
straw thatching. This is a cross between wheat and rye. It has the advantage
of being less susceptible to some of the climatic problems that have caused
the poor harvest of other forms of wheat straw in the past two seasons. Many
thatchers are now using it for combed wheat reed and the long straw style of
thatching. On the roof, it is indistinguishable from the latter.”
The article reported on the national conference on thatching organised by
English Heritage in 1999:
“English Heritage speakers acknowledged that, with
poor harvest of thatching straw in recent years, many householders are
turning to the traditionally more expensive water reed, principally because
it has a reputation for longevity.”
I understand that it lasts twice as long as long straw. It was used in
Scotland in the late 19th century, and it has been used widely for thatching
in the past two decades.
An article in The Observer in March made the point well:
“Prices for home grown specialist straw have doubled
in the past year and 2007 stocks are already used up. Foreign growers are
unable to make up the shortfall because they have also suffered a disastrous
year.”
The article quoted Bob West, a spokesman for the National Society of Master
Thatchers:
“Within five years there will be no wheat straw left
for thatching”.
Thatchers complain that some conservation officers have clamped down on
alternatives, insisting that only traditional materials be used on listed
buildings. In one case, officials allegedly ordered the home-grown substitute
to be taken off the roof of an ancient barn in Sussex and replaced with Polish
cereal straw. Typically, officials decree that roofs must be repaired with
exactly the same materials as before.
There are signs in the appeal decisions that go to the Department for
Communities and Local Government that planning officers’ excessive zeal is
being tempered. In an appeal against a decision in west Dorset, the inspector
said:
7 May 2008 : Column 266WH
“I have already considered the possible differences
in appearance created between water reed and wheat reed. Overall, I feel
these would be small and from most viewpoints would be insignificant. The
importance of retaining traditional forms of thatching must be tempered by
the availability of good quality material. Local thatchers have confirmed
that good crops of wheat reed are rare”.
Mr. Oliver
Letwin (West Dorset) (Con):
My right hon. Friend might be aware that I was involved in that case and have
been fighting a battle against English Heritage on the matter for some years.
As always, he has been enormously tempered and sagacious in his observations,
but does he agree that underneath it all, what we are actually facing is
“Yes Minister”?
There is a patent absurdity in regulators trying to regulate the invisible.
Nobody in west Dorset can see the difference between the two. My constituents
observe that, in some cases, English Heritage backs the replacement of old
farm buildings with modern monstrosities that no one wants to buy on the
grounds that they are an interesting development, but then prevent others, as
my right hon. Friend rightly says, from using home-grown materials to achieve
a perfectly acceptable effect. Is it not an example in fact of regulation gone
mad? Is not what we really require from the Department simply a sense of
humour?
Sir George
Young:
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his support, and I commend him for
his efforts on behalf of his constituents. I agree: if ever there was an area
ripe for deregulation, it is this one. I hope that the Better Regulation
Commission will be invited to consider the thatching regime with a view to
deregulating it.
In other decisions, inspectors have given weight to the quality and lifespan
of water reed, but only after the appellant has gone to the expense of appeal.
The flexibility should appear right at the beginning of the process: upstream
with planning officers, not downstream with inspectors.
Another appeal is outstanding against the decision of South Cambridgeshire
district council. I do not expect the Minister to comment on that, but I raise
it as an example. In 2004, an appeal was lost to change the style of thatching
from long straw to combed wheat reed. The property was then re-thatched in the
long straw style using triticale, but the council have now imposed an
enforcement notice specifically prohibiting any re-thatching using triticale.
I gave those examples to demonstrate that the current policy is inflexible, as
my right hon. Friend said, unsustainable and in urgent need of review. As he
pointed out, this area is crying out for deregulation. All the owners whom I
have met and spoken to are passionate about doing the right thing for their
property. They want to live in thatched cottages and maintain their value and
historical integrity. They have taken advice from experienced thatchers who
know their trade. They want a cost-effective and sustainable solution to the
problem of roof replacement, but they find obstacle after obstacle placed in
their path.
I have also spoken to thatchers, including one from Andover who told me this
morning that a lack of good quality straw—long straw and combed wheat—due
to bad harvests last year means that homeowners cannot replace their roof with
the same material. Planning
7 May 2008 : Column 267WH
officers are not being flexible either with new builds or listed buildings
needing repair, and English Heritage does not seem to accept newer, more
robust cereals for thatching even though they might save the homeowner money
in the long run. That restricts the types of material available to the
industry. Indeed, some thatchers might go out of business because, although
the work is available, the necessary materials are not, so they might not
survive.
I want three things out of this debate, if the Minister is to emerge as the
hero, which I confidently expect that he will. First, I would welcome a
meeting with myself and representatives of thatchers, such as the National
Society of Master Thatchers, so that they can explain to the Minister and
officials with more eloquence than I can muster this morning both the problems
and the solutions. I should also like English Heritage to be present at the
meeting, because its role is critical.
Secondly, I would welcome an indication from the Minister that he is prepared
to revise the section of PPG15 that I read out, which is now some 14 years
old, with a view to replacing it with something more sustainable that takes
account of available materials and is much more flexible. I hope that he will
encourage English Heritage to do the same, because we need a policy that
reflects the changes in agriculture and the dynamic nature of thatching.
Thirdly, I should like the Minister to urge planners to be more flexible as
from today and to listen to the advice that they receive from experienced
thatchers in how they deal with applications and to recognise that, as
resources, climate and economic conditions change, what was last placed on the
roof might not be the most appropriate for the next generation.
Although I am a Conservative, I have never been called a Thatcherite. However,
today, I find myself wholly aligned with those craftsmen and women, and I hope
that the Minister can bring comfort to them and to the home owners on whose
behalf I have spoken.
Hugh
Bayley (in the Chair):
The right hon. Gentleman was Lady Thatcher’s Housing Minister; I did not
realise that the post had had such a great effect on him.
11.12 am
The
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government
(Mr. Iain Wright):
I never thought that I would stand in this Chamber and celebrate the work of
thatchers, but on this occasion I am very pleased to do so. I am pleased, and
find it interesting, that you are presiding over the debate, Mr. Bayley,
because you represent a beautiful constituency in York with real architectural
gems. I am genuinely pleased that the right hon. Member for North-West
Hampshire (Sir George Young) secured this debate. He and I have only just
finished the Housing and Regeneration Public Bill Committee, where my respect
for him grew by the day, not only because of his huge housing experience, to
which you have referred, Mr. Bayley, but because, frankly, he had the uncanny
knack of simultaneously praising me and pulverising my argument. He has
deployed the same skills today in raising the important matter of the current
shortages and subsequent rising prices of cereal straw suitable for thatching,
and related planning policies.
This issue affects a significant number of people. Some 24,000 thatched
buildings are listed, and countless
7 May 2008 : Column 268WH
others are unlisted but located in conservation areas where local policies may
impose restrictions on the materials used for re-thatching. The key theme of
this debate was brought out by the right hon. Member for West Dorset (Mr.
Letwin)—the sensible and humorous exercise of planning controls. The
Government attach great importance to the protection of the historic
environment. Buildings are listed because of their special architectural or
historic interest. Once lost, they cannot be replaced, and they can be robbed
of their special interest as surely by unsuitable alteration as by outright
demolition. They are a finite resource and an irreplaceable asset, and I think
that we have a responsibility to protect such gems for future
generations—something that you will know only too well, Mr. Bayley, with
your constituency of City of York.
The starting point for the exercise of listed building control is the
statutory requirement on local planning authorities, under section 16 of the
Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990, to have
“special regard to the desirability of preserving the
building or its setting or any features of special architectural or historic
interest which it possesses.”
That reflects the great importance to society of protecting listed buildings
from unsuitable and insensitive alteration, and it should be the main
consideration for local authorities in determining applications for consent.
As the right hon. Member for North-West Hampshire has mentioned, guidance on
the operation of the planning controls, insofar as they affect the historic
environment, is given to local authorities in PPG15, published in 1994, which
states:
7 May 2008 : Column 264WH
Thatched Roofs
(Planning Policy)
10.59 am
Sir George
Young (North-West Hampshire) (Con):
I welcome this opportunity to raise the problems faced by many owners of thatched
cottages and houses when the time comes to renew their roofs and they apply
for planning consent. There are a number of players in the game: the home
owners themselves, the thatchers who do the work and the farmers who grow the
straw. The planners and English Heritage are the referees, and the man who
makes the rules is the Planning Minister, whom I welcome to the debate. There
are also many spectators: the visitors to and fellow residents of the many
traditional villages in this country with thatched
cottages, of which there are many in my constituency. They form part of our
cultural heritage—a heritage threatened by the very rules designed to
safeguard it.
Thatched roofs need to be replaced
every 15 or 20 years. Until the last part of the 20th century, the choice of
style and material for replacement was left to the owner and thatcher.
Replacement was evolutionary, reflecting the availability of materials and the
thatcher's craft and style. In the past 20 years, intervention and control
have begun to halt that evolutionary process. The balance must now be shifted
away from conservationists, who have tried to freeze-frame the process, and
back to owners and thatchers.
English Heritage now insists on a policy of like for like in materials and thatching
styles for listed building consent. A cottage thatched
with traditional long straw must be re-thatched
with traditional long straw. However, that straw is becoming scarce due to
changing farming practices. The problem is now critical as a result of the
poor harvest last year. Re-thatching
with any straw—whether long straw or combed wheat reed, as in Hampshire—is
impossible, because there is none.
Farmers can increase their crop yield by replacing cereal straw for thatching
with other crops. The rising price of wheat makes that shift yet more
imperative. English Heritage seems reluctant to recognise the changing trends
in cereal farming and will not accept alternative thatching
materials, which are indistinguishable from traditional materials to most of
us and last much longer. Its so-called guidance containing the like-for-like
policy is being slavishly followed by planning officers.
My interest derives from a lady outside Andover who wrote to me thus:
As you are a highly respected MP with a good reputation
for trouble-shooting, we are hoping you may be able to assist our somewhat
desperate situation.”
I shall précis the next bit of the letter, but I wanted to read that first
bit out in full. The lady's home had been re-thatched
in 1992. She applied to have it re-thatched
again with combed wheat instead of long straw, as she was simply unable to get
long straw. Planning permission was refused, although two years before, she
had received listed building consent to re-do the adjacent barn in combed
wheat, and other nearby properties, including listed buildings, use combed
wheat. She continues:
“It would seem the decision of English Heritage to
dictate that long straw must remain is ill-timed since there is none
available at all this year... All we ask is permission to preserve our home
in this way, since the availability of any long straw is impossible to
7 May 2008 : Column 265WH
obtain. We have lived here 25 years and now we see how the dips and gullies
are appearing all too soon. Combed wheat straw is a far more durable method
than traditional style, and English Heritage should be proud to see that
there are some of us who fight for this way forward.”
The English Heritage guidance reflects the Government's planning policy
guidance note 15, which was published in 1994. I quote from paragraph C.29:
“Thatched
roofs should be preserved, and consent should not be given for their
replacement by different roof coverings... When roofs are re-thatched,
this should normally be done in a form of thatch
traditional to the region”.
However, Hampshire must now import its traditional thatch
from Poland, leaving a substantial carbon footprint. Locally grown
alternatives, such as water reed, are forbidden.
Shortly after the guidance was issued by English Heritage, it was challenged,
not just by thatchers, who rightly argued that theirs was a dynamic and living
craft that should reflect the availability of local materials, but in an
article in The Building Conservation Directory:
“This issue has been made more complex by the
imminent removal of the only two wheat varieties suitable for thatching
and remaining on the UK National seed varieties list. It is illegal to trade
and plant any seeds not on the current National list; to overcome the
problem growers have been planting Triticale for both combed wheat reed and
long straw thatching. This is a
cross between wheat and rye. It has the advantage of being less susceptible
to some of the climatic problems that have caused the poor harvest of other
forms of wheat straw in the past two seasons. Many thatchers are now using
it for combed wheat reed and the long straw style of thatching.
On the roof, it is indistinguishable from the latter.”
The article reported on the national conference on thatching
organised by English Heritage in 1999:
“English Heritage speakers acknowledged that, with
poor harvest of thatching straw in
recent years, many householders are turning to the traditionally more
expensive water reed, principally because it has a reputation for
longevity.”
I understand that it lasts twice as long as long straw. It was used in
Scotland in the late 19th century, and it has been used widely for thatching
in the past two decades.
An article in The Observer in March made the point well:
“Prices for home grown specialist straw have doubled
in the past year and 2007 stocks are already used up. Foreign growers are
unable to make up the shortfall because they have also suffered a disastrous
year.”
The article quoted Bob West, a spokesman for the National Society of Master
Thatchers:
“Within five years there will be no wheat straw left
for thatching”.
Thatchers complain that some conservation officers have clamped down on
alternatives, insisting that only traditional materials be used on listed
buildings. In one case, officials allegedly ordered the home-grown substitute
to be taken off the roof of an ancient barn in Sussex and replaced with Polish
cereal straw. Typically, officials decree that roofs must be repaired with
exactly the same materials as before.
There are signs in the appeal decisions that go to the Department for
Communities and Local Government that planning officers' excessive zeal is
being tempered. In an appeal against a decision in west Dorset, the inspector
said:
7 May 2008 : Column 266WH
“I have already considered the possible differences
in appearance created between water reed and wheat reed. Overall, I feel
these would be small and from most viewpoints would be insignificant. The
importance of retaining traditional forms of thatching
must be tempered by the availability of good quality material. Local
thatchers have confirmed that good crops of wheat reed are rare”.
Mr. Oliver
Letwin (West Dorset) (Con):
My right hon. Friend might be aware that I was involved in that case and have
been fighting a battle against English Heritage on the matter for some years.
As always, he has been enormously tempered and sagacious in his observations,
but does he agree that underneath it all, what we are actually facing is
“Yes Minister”?
There is a patent absurdity in regulators trying to regulate the invisible.
Nobody in west Dorset can see the difference between the two. My constituents
observe that, in some cases, English Heritage backs the replacement of old
farm buildings with modern monstrosities that no one wants to buy on the
grounds that they are an interesting development, but then prevent others, as
my right hon. Friend rightly says, from using home-grown materials to achieve
a perfectly acceptable effect. Is it not an example in fact of regulation gone
mad? Is not what we really require from the Department simply a sense of
humour?
Sir George
Young:
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his support, and I commend him for
his efforts on behalf of his constituents. I agree: if ever there was an area
ripe for deregulation, it is this one. I hope that the Better Regulation
Commission will be invited to consider the thatching
regime with a view to deregulating it.
In other decisions, inspectors have given weight to the quality and lifespan
of water reed, but only after the appellant has gone to the expense of appeal.
The flexibility should appear right at the beginning of the process: upstream
with planning officers, not downstream with inspectors.
Another appeal is outstanding against the decision of South Cambridgeshire
district council. I do not expect the Minister to comment on that, but I raise
it as an example. In 2004, an appeal was lost to change the style of thatching
from long straw to combed wheat reed. The property was then re-thatched
in the long straw style using triticale, but the council have now imposed an
enforcement notice specifically prohibiting any re-thatching
using triticale.
I gave those examples to demonstrate that the current policy is inflexible, as
my right hon. Friend said, unsustainable and in urgent need of review. As he
pointed out, this area is crying out for deregulation. All the owners whom I
have met and spoken to are passionate about doing the right thing for their
property. They want to live in thatched
cottages and maintain their value and historical integrity. They have taken
advice from experienced thatchers who know their trade. They want a
cost-effective and sustainable solution to the problem of roof replacement,
but they find obstacle after obstacle placed in their path.
I have also spoken to thatchers, including one from Andover who told me this
morning that a lack of good quality straw—long straw and combed wheat—due
to bad harvests last year means that homeowners cannot replace their roof with
the same material. Planning
7 May 2008 : Column 267WH
officers are not being flexible either with new builds or listed buildings
needing repair, and English Heritage does not seem to accept newer, more
robust cereals for thatching even
though they might save the homeowner money in the long run. That restricts the
types of material available to the industry. Indeed, some thatchers might go
out of business because, although the work is available, the necessary
materials are not, so they might not survive.
I want three things out of this debate, if the Minister is to emerge as the
hero, which I confidently expect that he will. First, I would welcome a
meeting with myself and representatives of thatchers, such as the National
Society of Master Thatchers, so that they can explain to the Minister and
officials with more eloquence than I can muster this morning both the problems
and the solutions. I should also like English Heritage to be present at the
meeting, because its role is critical.
Secondly, I would welcome an indication from the Minister that he is prepared
to revise the section of PPG15 that
I read out, which is now some 14 years old, with a view to replacing it with
something more sustainable that takes account of available materials and is
much more flexible. I hope that he will encourage English Heritage to do the
same, because we need a policy that reflects the changes in agriculture and
the dynamic nature of thatching.
Thirdly, I should like the Minister to urge planners to be more flexible as
from today and to listen to the advice that they receive from experienced
thatchers in how they deal with applications and to recognise that, as
resources, climate and economic conditions change, what was last placed on the
roof might not be the most appropriate for the next generation.
Although I am a Conservative, I have never been called a Thatcherite. However,
today, I find myself wholly aligned with those craftsmen and women, and I hope
that the Minister can bring comfort to them and to the home owners on whose
behalf I have spoken.
Hugh
Bayley (in the Chair):
The right hon. Gentleman was Lady Thatcher's Housing Minister; I did not
realise that the post had had such a great effect on him.
11.12 am
The
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government
(Mr. Iain Wright):
I never thought that I would stand in this Chamber and celebrate the work of
thatchers, but on this occasion I am very pleased to do so. I am pleased, and
find it interesting, that you are presiding over the debate, Mr. Bayley,
because you represent a beautiful constituency in York with real architectural
gems. I am genuinely pleased that the right hon. Member for North-West
Hampshire (Sir George Young) secured this debate. He and I have only just
finished the Housing and Regeneration Public Bill Committee, where my respect
for him grew by the day, not only because of his huge housing experience, to
which you have referred, Mr. Bayley, but because, frankly, he had the uncanny
knack of simultaneously praising me and pulverising my argument. He has
deployed the same skills today in raising the important matter of the current
shortages and subsequent rising prices of cereal straw suitable for thatching,
and related planning policies.
This issue affects a significant number of people. Some 24,000 thatched
buildings are listed, and countless
7 May 2008 : Column 268WH
others are unlisted but located in conservation areas where local policies may
impose restrictions on the materials used for re-thatching.
The key theme of this debate was brought out by the right hon. Member for West
Dorset (Mr. Letwin)—the sensible and humorous exercise of planning controls.
The Government attach great importance to the protection of the historic
environment. Buildings are listed because of their special architectural or
historic interest. Once lost, they cannot be replaced, and they can be robbed
of their special interest as surely by unsuitable alteration as by outright
demolition. They are a finite resource and an irreplaceable asset, and I think
that we have a responsibility to protect such gems for future
generations—something that you will know only too well, Mr. Bayley, with
your constituency of City of York.
The starting point for the exercise of listed building control is the
statutory requirement on local planning authorities, under section 16 of the
Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990, to have
“special regard to the desirability of preserving the
building or its setting or any features of special architectural or historic
interest which it possesses.”
That reflects the great importance to society of protecting listed buildings
from unsuitable and insensitive alteration, and it should be the main
consideration for local authorities in determining applications for consent.
As the right hon. Member for North-West Hampshire has mentioned, guidance on
the operation of the planning controls, insofar as they affect the historic
environment, is given to local authorities in PPG15,
published in 1994, which states:
