Still no guidelines from English Heritage

As you may remember I noted that locally Lydia Savage made the national press for trying to put in secondary glazing - she was refused by SDC with the support of English Heritage and they got further coverage in The Guardian and Radio Glos last November. See my blog from 24th September 2007.

Photo: Middle Spring, Ruscombe

Last month a BBC radio producer at Bush House invited them to take part in a debate with EH on air in connection with a conference that was taking place involving EH and the National Trust. It has been rumoured for a while that the new green EH Guidelines for energy conservation were to be released and publicised at this conference. Indeed the National Trust asked local authorities to review their procedures to permit preservation of historic buildings -but not a word about EH.

Richard Savage did a pre-recorded interview for the morning show "World Update" but no news of the conference. Apparently it turned out to be an invitation-only conference at the Royal Society on 24 and 25 January involving 100 people. EH does appear to be in a dilemma. New Building Regulations are being published in the spring and they have to decide whether to go ahead and release the information about the guidelines or just sit on it.

When in doubt, set up a website

It seems they have - see here. Anyhow it seems the upshot is that we have no guidelines for another quarter year and that means the Savages either apply in the present confused situation with virtually no policy guidelines or bide their time. Not satisfactory but good on them for keeping up the pressure.