PRESS RELEASE: Civic Voice welcomes ‘Anywhereville’ as new conservation area
Embargo: Immediate release 1st April 2019
Civic Voice is delighted to see that a local authority, somewhere in England, has today designated ‘Anywhereville Town’ as a brand-new conservation area.
Conservation areas exist to manage and protect the special architectural and historic interest of a place - in other words, the features that make it unique. Every local authority in England has at least one conservation area and there are now over 10,000 in England.
The local civic society said: ‘With our local authority having 20 conservation staff, and all conservation areas having up-to-date appraisals and up-to-date management plans, we support what they do. We also have a Heritage Champion who is making the case for heritage across the area. We, of course, support them in the news that ‘Anywhereville Town’ is the latest area to be designated one 10,000 conservation areas across the country. We look forward to inviting communities to our town, to see a development that looks exactly like where they live.”
Ian Harvey, Director of Civic Voice said: “The Planning Minister, Kit Malthouse MP recently said that he wanted ‘Developers to ask themselves, are you building the conservation areas of tomorrow? I challenge you to do so.’ We at Civic Voice support this call. Our work with communities is showing that communities will accept more housing, if they can have more meaningful engagement in shaping what that housing is. Do we want to look back in 50 years and say, ‘When we had a chance to build millions of homes, what a wasted opportunity it was and that we built every new housing development to look exactly the same as ‘Anywhereville Town’?”
Communities are the key to the future of conservation areas, and it is why we are asking every civic society and conservation society to meet their MP on 18th June 2019 to make the case for conservation areas.
Harvey finished by saying: “I can be sure of one thing, areas that all look the same, with lack of affordable housing, indistinctive and without reference to the local context of an area, are not going to be the conservation areas of tomorrow. And that, on April Fool’s Day, is no joke.”
NOTES FOR EDITORS
1 Civic Voice is the national charity for the civic movement. We work to make the places where everyone lives more attractive, enjoyable and distinctive and to promote civic pride. We speak up for civic societies and local communities across England.
2 Civic Voice’s Parliamentary meeting on 18th June 2019 will launch England’s Favourite Conservation Area for 2019 and civic societies will be meeting MPs to highlight the importance of conservation areas and the historic environment. More information via .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
Further information:
Ian Harvey .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
T 0121 792 8177 / 07877096968
T @civic_voice