Balancing needs of listed buildings and need for VAT relief

I WOULD like to support the observations made by Nick Burrows in your headline story concerning changes to the system of VAT relief for listed buildings (Yorkshire Post, July 21), while at the same time challenging some of the assumptions made in the remainder of your article, which supports the oft-repeated complaint that the statutory protection of historic buildings is an inevitable burden upon their owners and custodians.

It is by no means inevitably the case that the repair of traditional or historic buildings represents a disproportionate cost or financial burden, but has long been the case that the provision of VAT relief for wholesale replacement or significant alteration, but of none for more targeted necessary repair or conservation of perfectly appropriate and functional existing fabric has encouraged the loss to heavy-handed (but VAT-relieved) restoration and renewal, as well as encouraging a dysfunctional attitude towards traditional buildings among many who pretend to be familiar with their needs. Mr Burrows point is entirely salient here.

As a building conservator working in North Yorkshire, I have been every day amazed and frequently demoralised witnessing the frequency with which historic buildings are “saved” by improvements which gratuitously rob them of much of their authenticity and historic fabric and which eventuality an imbalanced system of tax relief has only encouraged and rewarded.

The Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings have long-campaigned for the application of the same VAT relief to in situ and sensitive repair of historic fabric – a roof, for example – as would apply was this fabric simply removed and renewed, with new and probably inferior timbers and detail, new pantiles or slates.

In this way, relatively inexpensive repair and conservation of existing fabric – based upon informed historic analysis and understanding of traditional materials and methods – is not considered and much more expensive but VAT-relieved replacement, which brings in train often inappropriate application of modern building control and regulations and the application of frequently dubiously necessary and expensive structural engineering “solutions” and of frequently incompatible modern materials which will further damage and diminish surviving authentic fabric and precisely that historic character which has led to the listing of these buildings in the first place.

So, while any tax changes that might be seen to diminish our stock of culturally significant buildings are to be vigorously opposed, it is more than a U-turn that is required in this case – at the same time as tax relief should be reinstated for legitimate alterations to historic and traditionally constructed structures that are demonstrably necessary to the structural survival or appropriate use of these, such relief must also be extended to the repair and conservation of such buildings as well. This may change not only the financial equation but the attitudes, presumptions and choice of materials of both building professionals and custodians alike, saving not only money but irreplaceable historic fabric to boot.

From; Fleur Butler, Leader of the Conservatives, Richmondshire District Council.

FURTHER to your reports on the new £30,000-£40,000 development tax passed by Richmondshire Council, the council is confusing two policies at the same time. The new tax has been mixed up with the 40 per cent of a site given for “affordable homes” by large developers such as Wimpey or Barrat.

Richmondshire Council would have it that the new tax on single houses, in the rural areas, is the same policy. It is not. One policy provides sites, the other is about raising money in rural areas to build social houses, mainly in the non rural areas.

There is a huge need for both privately owned and social housing in Richmondshire in both the rural and less rural communities. You don’t solve one problem in one area by attacking the other. Harrogate and Scarborough Councils are debating similar taxes. I wonder if they are aiming their charges only at the rural areas?

The tax is aimed particularly at single homes, in rural “high value areas” where a new home costs £230,000 on the open market, and would be added to any construction cost whether the house is sold or not.

The effect on village builders and tradespeople has not even been considered. This charge on rural houses has nothing to do with providing sites in the rural communities for locals to buy or rent. This is not its purpose. It is about a punitive tax of £40,000 on the rural people who wish to solve their own problems and not be dependant on the State.

Self-builders, young couples, farming families who want to live locally will all be hit. The failure of the new tax is it will do the opposite of providing local homes, it acts as a disincentive for rural sites to come forward and will force prices even higher out of the reach of locals.