Historical buildings to get statutory protection

INSENSITIVE and ill informed "improvements" are taking away the character and appearance of historic buildings and shortening their useful life, according to Ms Liz McManus, Minister of State for Housing and Urban Renewal.

"Unnecessary replacement not only diminishes the very qualities one is trying to hand down to the next generation, it also penalises the next generation as well because it amounts to the waste of scarce planetary resources," she said.

Ms McManus confirmed that legislation was being prepared to amend the Planning Acts with the aim of giving statutory protection to listed buildings, in line with the recommendations of a recent inter departmental report.

She was speaking at a reception in Newman House to mark the publication of a series of booklets on the conservation of historic buildings, prepared by the Irish Georgian Society and produced by the Department of the Environment.

Prof Kevin B. Nowlan, chairman of the Dublin Civic Group, said progress was clearly being made when the Georgian Society dismissed as "belted earls" 25 years ago, was now seen as "a very suitable partner" for such a venture.

"Partnership is central to the whole idea of conservation," the Minister said. "No single organisation, profession or discipline has either a monopoly of wisdom or, indeed, the range of knowledge required for this task."

Without specific guidelines, there was "too large a gap to be bridged", Ms McManus said. All sectors needed the kind of advice provided by the booklets - householders, builders, professionals and local authorities.

The booklets, which are the first to be officially issued in the Republic on the care and maintenance of historic buildings, are to be made available free of charge. They were funded with EU aid.

As the Minister noted, the entire series is presented in a very accessible and practical way, covering such areas as windows, stonework, roofs, internal joinery, decorative plasterwork, shopfronts and that hardy perennial - dry rot.

They are based on three key principles - firstly, the need for research before doing major works; secondly, the concept of minimum intervention, based on repair rather than replacement; and thirdly, respect for the context.

It was "extremely difficult to replace old materials with modern materials of equivalent quality and character," Ms McManus said. "These qualities are vulnerable and easily lost. Once lost, they are almost impossible to recreate.

The booklet on windows, for example, takes quite a strong line against replacing timber with PVC. "The visual impact of PVC replacement windows is totally out of keeping with the character of historic buildings," it says.