THE COSTS AND BENEFITS OF CONSERVING HERITAGE ASSETS: THE WATERWORKS AT SEETHING WELLS

摘要

One cannot rule out the possibility that, sooner or later, a developer will come up with a way of making Seething Wells pay as an industrial heritage site. After all, since the introduction of the 1947 Town and Country Planning Acts, development rights have been vested in the state and this has prompted efforts to recoup the profits from land development, whether through betterment levy or through planning gain. And it is perfectly possible that the conservation of the industrial heritage at Seething Wells might in due course be financed through the device of planning gain. However, one cannot be optimistic about this prospect. Whilst Historic England's survey results might show that people believe that industrial heritage sites like this one should be conserved, there is little evidence they are willing to pay the cost involved. Unfortunately, industrial heritage conservation does not, at least in the UK, attract the level of interest and commitment that (say) the conservation of wild birds does. There is, for example, nothing equivalent to the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) that has a paying membership of well over a million, greater for example than that of all national political parties put together. Admittedly, the National Trust, which claims to have more members than any other conservation organisation in Europe, is concerned with the industrial heritage, but this aspect of its work can hardly be described as being at the forefront of its activities.