The historic environment is an irreplaceable
resource that should be treated responsibly. Conservation is
intrinsically sustainable.
Background
Nottinghamshire’s historicenvironment is rich in quality,
quantity and diversity. We have always interacted with this complex
historic environment, adapting it, shaping landscapes and leaving behind
a wealth of buildings, structures, and archaeological remains. Much of
this environment is in a fragile condition, unprotected, poorly recorded
and vulnerable to unsympathetic management and development proposals.
Today we have an unprecedented capacity to change and destroy what was
created in the past. Sustainable principles suggest that we should
achieve an acceptable quality of life and pass on this inheritance to
our children and grandchildren in the best possible condition. Old
buildings, even of modest architectural quality represent a past
investment of energy and materials. Retaining and adapting them, rather
than replacing them, is a sensible way of safeguarding past investment
of energy. It often requires expert input at the design stage.
Many traditionally constructed buildings have served a series of uses
over a long period of time and are associated with traditional skills
and practices. Appropriately maintained and sensitively occupied, many
of them are capable of further long and useful lives. Nottinghamshire
has a particularly rich heritage of industrial Victorian buildings.
Those which have survived and been adapted have become desirable
residential, commercial or institutional properties and have sparked the
regeneration of whole areas (e.g. Nottingham’s Canalside).
Both historic buildings and archaeological remains contain
irreplaceable information about the past. While historic buildings can
normally be sensitively modernised or re-used, archaeology is a
non-renewable resource that requires careful management if it is to
survive to benefit future generations.
The majority of the historic environment is unprotected, poorly recorded and vulnerable to unsympathetic development proposals.
Forces for change
- Increasing awareness that the conservation of historic buildings
is a sustainability issue, in recognition of the substantial ‘embodied’
energy they represent.
- Greater appreciation of the positive impact of the built heritage on the quality of modern life.
- Government’s more extensive policy attention to the historic environment as a whole.
- Greater knowledge about the environmental, health and thermal insulation qualities of traditional building
