Neil Burton highlights the need for a more coherent mechanism in the dissemination of architectural research information:

In March 2005 a conference held under the auspices of The Society of Architectural Historians, The Institute of Historic Buildings Conservation and English Heritage on the uses of architectural history highlighted (chiefly by omission) the growing size and significance of the private sector in applied research on historic buildings, monuments, areas and landscapes.

Architectural Historians and Archaeologists are the principal professions engaged in this research, practising within a variety of settings including multi-disciplinary planning & environmental consultancies, archaeological units, architectural and structural engineering practices, specialised architectural historical and conservation consultancies and single independents. Some consultants provide research and advice solely for in-house projects but most accept commissions from a range of external clients in the public and private sectors.

The growth in the sector has been fuelled principally by the demands of the Heritage Lottery Fund since 1999 for Conservation Plans assessing the significance of various types of heritage. Conservation Plans and Statements are now also frequently commissioned by owners and developers, at the suggestion of the LPA or of English Heritage, as part of a planning application. 

It is important that there should be some mechanism for dialogue between  consultants, or at least for comparison between their work, to help establish proper standards, and also for the dissemination of the new research information which these report often contain within the professions and in the academic and wider community.

From informal discussions it is clear that there is already some concern about the variable standards of consultants’ reports. In particular there is concern about the standards, content, use and fate of conservation plans. Identifying examples of good practice through comparisons is difficult.  Although most of the plans prepared for submission to the Heritage Lottery Fund in support of an application for funds are paid for partly with public money, they cannot be accessed through HLF, which seems extraordinary, nor through the National Monuments Record which is unwilling to accept them, and are seldom deposited in Historic Environment Records.  The same is even more true with the plans prepared for private developers

 Many consultancies have no policy on deposition, partly through inertia but partly because deposition is often surprisingly difficult. Sometimes there are copyright or confidentiality issues. And there is a wide variation in the local frameworks for deposition of reports between County SMR/HERS, County Record Offices & Local Studies Libraries.  Some archives will only accept black and white photographs, others are unable to deal with digital photos or data; very few archives are willing to accept acetate drawings, and in the case of archaeological records the components are often separated, with the report held by SMR/CRO and the finds and building material samples held at museum stores.

After one informal discussion between a group of independent consultants it was suggested that it should be possible at least to compile a list of buildings and sites which had been the subject of reports or conservation plans, together with their authors, and that such a list might be posted on a web site, perhaps the IHBC website. It was also suggested that perhaps the HLF might fund the work.  To date, nothing has come of this suggestion, and vast quantities of new research continue languish in dusty inaccessible files.

Article by Neil Burton
The Architectural History Practice Ltd., September 2006