A sinister feature of the New Labour years was the policy of erasing Britain’s
sense of history and tradition, as though the clock had started afresh in
1997.

One would have hoped for better from the present lot. But even some of their
friends feel that heritage is being short-changed.

This isn’t only a question of budgetary constraint. According to those tweedy
shire-dwellers, the Country Landowners Association (CLA), what really
rankles is the failure to liberate country-house owners from the tyranny of
officialdom.

Their woes have been advertised in a report entitled Averting Crisis in
Heritage. This is an important subject because it is increasingly through
places such as country houses that the public is exposed to the history
which it missed out on at school.

And yet the owners of such properties, who invest vast sums in their upkeep,
are being bossed around by petty bureaucrats to the point that owning one
makes little economic sense.

One might take issue with the CLA president William Worsley’s assertion in the
report that his predecessors were caring for heritage sites long before
William Morris created the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings
(SPAB) in the 1870s.

After all, aristocrats and Yorkshire gentlemen, such as himself, may have
built splendid piles, sometimes even preserved ruins, but most of them had
no qualms in knocking things down.

In 1963, for example, the Duke of Westminster demolished Alfred Waterhouse’s
Gothic Revival Eaton Hall, and replaced it with a building in the style of a
chewing gum factory.

But that was long ago; these days, owners realise that heritage has a value
which they would be mad to destroy. This, however, has not been noticed by
the planners and bureaucrats.

Owners of listed buildings are so hedged about by protective restrictions that
high-end estate agents are advising clients not to buy Grade 1-listed
properties – it will take years of heartache and bruising encounters with
low-grade planning officers before they can be inhabited.

By then, the owner’s children may have grown up, or been divorced. The
difficulties are likely to get worse, as councils shed some of their most
experienced staff.

Michael Shuttleworth’s experience at Hathersage Hall, in Derbyshire, will be
familiar to many country house owners. A business centre has arisen from the
outbuildings, previously a dairy unit, that he owns there, but only after 25
years in the planning process.

The Peak District National Park’s conservation officer, following the
principles of the SPAB, wanted the barns, built of old stone, to be
complemented by a frankly modern structure; but “stakeholders”, including
the parish council, thought the resulting design was terrible.

Redrawing the plans caused delay, loss of money, problems in accessing a
promised grant, and, finally, a legal wrangle with the contractor. The
result may be a model of its kind, but the process was hardly efficient.

The other day I went back to my Cambridge college, where an inter-war bath
house is being replaced by a superb new structure by John Simpson.

When showing me the design, the development director explained that the theme
had been set by the planners.

They thought the general effect should be one of picturesque jumble – the
impression given by the building already on the site. Why?

Suppose Simpson had wanted to build a Baroque masterpiece, like the Senate
House, or another King’s College Chapel. Should it be the preserve of some
minor functionary to say no? Peterhouse and Simpson have gone along with it;
they had to.

But you really would have thought that an ancient college, quite apart from
the rights they should be allowed as freeholders, contains at least as much
historical and architectural knowledge as the local planning department.

People and institutions, who are well disposed to the heritage, should be
encouraged to own and invest in it. I suggest the Coalition should revive
the old principle that he who pays the piper calls the tune.