Save our Heritage: Our campaign to protect Thetford’s historic conservation area
The Thetford Society want Breckland and Norfolk County Council to start paying attention to repar work carried out in the town's conservation areas. Dennis Sully, Cllr Mike Brindle and Stuart Wright - Credit: Eastern Daily Press © 2015
Today sees the launch of the Save our Heritage campaign, an effort to stop the neglect of Thetford’s conservation area.
Prompted by the Thetford Society, the campaign is hoping to raise awareness of our town centre’s decline, and persuade our local authorities to act.
English Heritage’s most recent Heritage at Risk report, released in October, revealed that Thetford’s Conservation Area is the only conservation area in Norfolk and Suffolk to be assigned the trend of ‘deteriorating significantly’.
Some 6pc of the country’s 8,000 conservation areas are designated as being at risk - inlcuding Thetford.
And the body has made it clear in the past that the cause of this decline falls into two categories - what owners do to their buildings, and what councils do - or fail to do - to streets, pavements, parks and public spaces.
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For councils, that means adhering to clearly defined rules about maintaining the historic character of an area, by considering issues such as street furniture, repairs to listed buildings and cleaning up graffiti.
Sadly, according to the Thetford Society, Breckland Council, Norfolk County Council and Thetford Town Council have only paid “lip service” to these rules.
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Stuart Wright, society chairman, said it had worked closely with county council engineers who have referenced the conservation area, only to carry out work which flouted protocols.
“All three tiers of local government are guilty of ignoring the designation with the removal of heritage lampposts, inconsistent and inappropriate street furniture, the gradual loss of black painted street furniture in the town centre, temporary fixes to pavements, poor repairs to listed buildings and the refusal to remove graffiti.
“The first thing that needs sorting is future works. When we are doing something new, we should immediately think ‘it’s a conservation area and what guidelines do we need to adhere to?’
“The figures show that nearly 95pc of other places make an effort to keep to the rules, but we have our head in the sand because no agency seems to take responsibility for it,” he said.
Can you make a contribution? We want residents and businesses to get behind the Save our Heritage campaign in any way they can. Email tbw.news@archant.co.uk if you can help.
