HISTORIC PLACES PANEL Historic towns, new society

Benjamin Derbyshire

Ben is non-executive Chair of HTA Design LLP, a leading multidisciplinary design practice specialising in housing and placemaking. He is a Commissioner of Historic England. He serves on the London Advisory Committee, High Streets Heritage Action Zone Board, and is chair of the Historic Places Panel. He is President of the London Forum of Amenity and Civic Societies and is a current member of the NHBC Council.  Ben was President of RIBA from 2017–2019 where he oversaw fundamental change in the financing and governance of the institute and the instigation of policies in relation to climate action, professional competence and codes of conduct. He has summarised his long career as a housing designer in a book, Home Truths, published by Hatch Editions in 2023 and available from RIBA Books, effectively a primer for anyone with an interest in the planning and design of sustainable places.

Ben explains the role of the Historic Places Panel and the opportunities for enhancing failing high streets. “People … are the well-spring for recreating faltering places. People hold the collective memory, an intangible heritage just as real and just as important as buildings and the spaces between them.” 

Background and practical help 

Historic England has an advisory role with place-based activities and services available to local authorities and other agencies involved in urban regeneration. A key part is played by the Historic Places Panel which I have chaired since 2022. The panel visits to provide a broad spectrum of independent expertise and advice on the regeneration and revitalisation of historic places. During my tenure, we have so far visited Accrington, Dewsbury, Luton, Portsmouth, Hartlepool, Exeter, Stoke on Trent and Barrow in Furness – an extraordinary and privileged opportunity to spend time in, and learn from, places at the heart of English life. 

Panellists are independent, coming from senior positions in public, private and not-for-profit sectors with a strong interest in place-making, the historic environment and urban character. They are selected to represent professional specialisms including archaeology, architecture, conservation, culture and the arts, planning, landscape, sustainability, development economics, retail, transport, community engagement and more. 

Historic England's regional teams engage with our hosts on the focus for visits, prepare extensive and very high-quality briefing, and agree an agenda of fact finding, presentations, walk-abouts and deliberation over two days. As chair, I join the regional teams to reconnoitre ahead of visits. Findings of the panel visits are now published within three months (available to read on the Historic England website) and we always follow up afterwards with feedback meetings a year or so later. 

Hartlepool with author

Our opportunity has been to better understand the issues faced by the nation’s smaller towns of between 30,000–200,000 population. Our visits usually focus on town centres and high streets. Each town is unique and remarkable in its own way with histories evident in surviving heritage, but they also share some common issues. 

Vacancy rates of shops, commercial and residential premises can be very high. Crime rates and fear of crime result in low footfall, and this is often compounded after dark by an absence of night-time economy. Economic activity, entrepreneurship and cultural activity are often in decline or sometimes indiscernible. Everywhere, major roads built in the last century sever town centres from the surrounding hinterland of residential neighbourhoods. 

Commercial Dewsbury

Dewsbury Arcade

On the upside, councillors, local authority officers and key stakeholders are universally committed to positive change. Our visits have exposed us both to brilliant initiatives, but also yet unrealised opportunities. 

• In Hartlepool, the very challenged Church Street is set to become the heart of a production village for new film studios at Northern School of Art. Hartlepool Borough Council is investing in and around Church Street. The Historic Places Panel visit privately developed residential renovations stimulated by this intervention 

• In Dewsbury, an abandoned Victorian Arcade will be handed over to a community trust, while one of the finest groupings of 19th century warehouses in Britain lie largely vacant. The Historic Places Panel visit Dewsbury Arcade. The panel suggested its very small retail units would make ideal accommodation for micro-business arising from local economic development. A Historic England Research Report found that the unique assemblage of 18th and 19th century warehouses and commercial buildings in central Dewsbury to be of national importance. The Historic Places Panel urged their renovation for mixed residential and commercial use 

• The Luton Culture Trust is transforming the Hat District, and Luton Town FC’s move to within yards of 15th century St. Mary’s church in the town centre presents huge opportunities and some not insignificant heritage challenges. The image features landscape architect Johanna Gibbons on the tower of St Mary’s Church Luton. Behind is the site for the new Luton Town FC stadium. A giant mural erected by the Luton Culture Trust greets you as you step off the train. Operating from the Hat District, chief executive Marie Kirbyshaw sets out to connect the community through culture. 

Luton, Johanna Gibbons

Luton Culture Trust mural

There are of course many, many more examples. 

Common themes 

There are common themes that emerge again and again among the recommendations in our reports. 

It is widely accepted that local authority capacity reduction has led to an acute shortage of resource and skill in strategic planning, development management, engagement, urban design, enforcement, seriously reducing the effectiveness of the planning system. 

This can be partly addressed with improvements to internal and external collaboration, lack of which is a common issue. Many towns struggle to develop their brand to consolidate and enrich the town centre offer. We have often recommended the creation of local industrial/business/institutional town strategic partnerships with increased diversity of representation. 

There is immense potential to scale up housing renovation programmes, as well as new home building, engaging with Homes England. Housing investment in town-centre locations remains miniscule by comparison with out-of-town development. 

Often towns lack a strategic placemaking masterplan, mapping and identifying grey, green and blue networks, neglecting the importance of sustainable movement and connectivity. We find ourselves attempting to curb the tendency for comprehensive redevelopment, which can sometimes be highly damaging. 

Cultural engagement 

These themes are familiar enough, but as time goes on, we become increasingly aware of the potential for cultural engagement as an engine for positive change in all of them. Based partly on learning from Historic England’s High Street Heritage Action Zones programme, we suggest progress on the problematic issues noted above would be enhanced if local authorities had the capacity and skills to build up a properly invested network of engaged citizens and community groups. 

The Historic Places Panel champions this untapped placemaking potential among the populations of towns we have visited. People - those that came before, live now and those yet to leave their mark – are the well-spring for recreating faltering places. People hold the collective memory, an intangible heritage just as real and just as important as buildings and the spaces between them. 

It seems clear that local authorities need more of the resources, skills and structures of governance to convene, engage and grow the patchwork of community activity that exists everywhere, albeit often fragmented, depleted and sometimes demoralised.  The panel has suggested this resource should be deployed as a means of identifying and mapping human and physical resources. 

Local groups can map the anatomy of a town, its centres of community, industry, learning and leisure and the connecting systems of movement and communication.  Local people can tell where they find connectivity, opportunity and pleasure. They can help create local heritage lists using their own unique criteria.  Equally well, they’ll identify blockages, threats and potential danger.  The community’s cognitive map can become the basis for a landscape of layers as an armature for regeneration. 

This approach simultaneously enriches a town’s relationship with community groups, while accessing the ecosystem of craft, art, music and literature.  The same goes for micro businesses of all kinds – in local food production, gaming and technology for example.  Religious and sporting activity play a part too. Together this can become an impetus for the lively re-occupation of vacant built or open space.  There is nothing more deleterious of heritage than emptiness.  Pop-ups and meanwhile uses can become permanent parts of the local economy. 

We recommend Urban Rooms, first conceived by The Farrell Review, also known as Our Future in Place, in 2013. These need be no more than an adapted shopfront providing space for civic activism, where people can engage in the process of urban transformation. The space can accommodate discourse and debate co-curated with local groups such as to encourage development that positively contributes to towns and the wellbeing of citizens.  Urban Rooms take up a neutral position, not in direct affiliation with the local authority or development interests - ensuring vox populi is heard. 

The Historic Places Panel believes a greater focus on people-centred regeneration will be amply rewarded. Invest in local society, enable the rebuilding of social structures, cultural activity and the local economy and communities will contribute much to the task of heritage conservation and placemaking even as they go about it.