8th March 2007, 02:17 PM
Bye then.. 
But seriously it's not all bad. Devolving designation powers to EH just removes 'double-handling' by EH and DCMS and won't significantly change things - it will speed up the process though. This had already been done succesfully with Scheduled Monument Consent anyway. The paper also contains the much needed committment to statutory SMR/HERs - another good thing. As for underpinning legislation with policy guidance - so what? Getting guidance out into the world is a lot easier than getting legsialtion through parliament - Note. It will be at least 2010/11 before any of this becomes law, and it may be quite unrecognisable from the white paper by then. The White Paper, however, is a good start in my opinion - Lets hope it don't get forgotten or water down too much. Don't know what took it so long though! Oh: here you go - Page 30 -
But seriously it's not all bad. Devolving designation powers to EH just removes 'double-handling' by EH and DCMS and won't significantly change things - it will speed up the process though. This had already been done succesfully with Scheduled Monument Consent anyway. The paper also contains the much needed committment to statutory SMR/HERs - another good thing. As for underpinning legislation with policy guidance - so what? Getting guidance out into the world is a lot easier than getting legsialtion through parliament - Note. It will be at least 2010/11 before any of this becomes law, and it may be quite unrecognisable from the white paper by then. The White Paper, however, is a good start in my opinion - Lets hope it don't get forgotten or water down too much. Don't know what took it so long though! Oh: here you go - Page 30 - Quote:quote:We will improve access to information about the local historic environment by introducing a statutory duty on local authorities to maintain or have access to a Historic Environment RecordShocking![:p]