Stevens defends methods to save nation's heritage
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Your support makes all the difference.JOCELYN STEVENS, chairman of English Heritage, defended his management style yesterday saying that safeguarding the country's decaying heritage 'is not a gentle challenge'.
In a BBC Newsnight interview, Mr Stevens said he was 'unashamedly in a hurry' to produce a 'clear-cut, tough policy' because he feared government funding was under threat.
'There is a hell of a lot to be done and I want to get on with it,' he said. English Heritage's 'Forward Strategy', which seeks to encourage local authorities and civic groups to take over management of some of Britain's most important cultural sites and hand over conservation powers in London to borough councils, has been undermined by controversy over Mr Stevens's style.
He failed to consult statutory advisory bodies before unveiling the plan last October, prompting Robin Corbett, Labour's heritage spokesman, to condemn him as 'an unsuitable ignoramus'. Later he angered ministers when he dismissed critics as 'gibbering monkeys' who 'could pee out of the window' in an interview in the Independent on Sunday. The Government, he insisted, had never queried the Forward Strategy.
Last month, however, Peter Brooke, Secretary of State for National Heritage, forced the agency to dilute its plans to hand over responsibility for alterations to 30,000 Grade II listed buildings to London's 32 borough councils and the Corporation of London.
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