Buildings at risk

As the local planning authority, we have the responsibility to ensure that listed buildings within our district are maintained. We are able to serve legal notices on owners that must be acted on.

These vary from a simple matter of being required to "tidy up" the exterior of a building to a Repairs Notice that would require works to the interior and exterior of the building, which, if not complied with, could lead to a Compulsory Purchase Order being served.

These are obviously steps that we do not undertake lightly. The first step is to place the building on our "Buildings at Risk" register that is reported to committee regularly. This means that its condition will be monitored and should it not improve, the local planning authority may have no choice but to request an enforcement notice be served for repairs to be carried out.

The condition of buildings is summarised according to the English Heritage priority system of risk categories.

A. immediate risk of further rapid deterioration or loss of fabric; no solution agreed.

B. immediate risk of rapid deterioration or loss of fabric; solution agreed but not yet implemented.

C. slow decay; no solution agreed.

D. slow decay; solution agreed but not yet implemented;

E. under repair or in fair to good repair, but no user identified; or under threat of vacancy with no obvious new user (applicable only to buildings capable of beneficial use); repair scheme in progress and (where applicable) end use or user identified; functionally redundant buildings with new use agreed but not yet implemented.