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Five minutes with... Henrietta Billings

Tuesday 27 May 2025

David Taylor

David Taylor

Consultant Editor

David Taylor meets Henrietta Billings of SAVE to talk through the campaigning group’s 50th anniversary celebrations – and whether heritage is more or less in peril in the net zero age 

 
David Taylor  
Hi, Henrietta, how are you? 
 
Henrietta Billings 
Hello. I'm good. Thanks. How are you?
 
David Taylor  
I'm very good. Thank you. I wanted to quiz you about lots of things concerning your work, but initially I know that as an institution, SAVE is turning 50 this year, and wondered how you're celebrating that?
 
Henrietta Billings 
Yes, that's right. It's a pretty momentous time for us, actually this year, and we want to use it to the best of our advantage by actually doing a series of national events around the country, hooking up with community groups and campaigners and really bringing our work to a national audience again. And so last week, we had this conference in Norwich, which was really fun, actually, and pretty intense! For a small organisation, it's a lot to organise. We had about 15 speakers, all of whom were just brilliant, and who gave up a lot of their time and expertise. And we had a really, really interesting day. That was all about building in historic context. So, we focused it on Norwich, because we've done a lot of work and campaigning there in terms of how to redevelop large sites in city centre conservation areas and Norwich is one of the best-preserved mediaeval cities north of The Alps. It's a really spectacular city, and it seemed like a really good place in which to focus that angle of our work. We were really thrilled to get speakers like Sunand Prasad and Ben Derbyshire and developers like Ian Harrabin and Eric Reynolds, who's also our chair of trustees, and architects like Mikhail Riches, who, of course, won the Stirling prize for their work in Norwich, didn't they? So, we were able to talk locally about stuff that had happened and really good stuff that was happening in Norwich, but also, more generally, we had examples from Purcell Architects about stuff that they had done in the Netherlands. Really, really interesting, contextual modern development, so not pastiche-type architecture - contextual modern, contemporary architecture in response to sensitive settings. It was an interesting day!
 
David Taylor  
I note from a quote that I've seen from you that you're launching a 'renewed drive to grow SAVE as a popular campaigning movement'. Can you unpack that a little? Do you think it's not popular enough, or not known enough? And is the campaigning element more necessary now?
 
Henrietta Billings 
So, this came about partly because obviously, when you're when you turn 50 - apparently (laughs) - it's a good time for reflection, and we wanted to look back on our achievements and our challenges and our big campaigns, but also the future of SAVE and where we wanted to take the organisation. And one of the things that comes up a lot is that, because of the nature of our work – like campaigning, taking legal action, working with architects and developers to come up with reuse proposals – we cover a lot, but also, we're not necessarily that well known. So, we wanted to use this opportunity at a time when people are talking about getting involved through their communities, through the built environment, and this point that where you live and the buildings around you, they're like the backdrop to your life, right? They're the buildings that we pass through every day that we live in, we work in, we relax in, and people have very strong feelings about it. It's a way of activating that interest in the community by getting people to join in with our activities, to sign up to our free news and events and bulletins and to really join this community of people who are thinking about all these issues around reuse, around place, around the environmental impact and consequences of building, and all of these issues. We wanted to kind of open that up through this programme of national events, but also through this renewed call to join up and start this conversation with us. So that's where it came from.
 
David Taylor  
I was wondering whether you think that perhaps heritage is less under threat these days, given the drive to reuse buildings and the whole net zero campaign. Do you think that's the case?
 
Henrietta Billings 
Yeah, that's really interesting. I think there's loads of interest. And the Marks and Spencer's campaign was a really interesting component of that. But actually, I think the current government agenda of, to put into quotes, "build, build, build", and a kind of "rip up the planning system", and using words like "bulldoze our way through" in the context of new housing isn't actually, necessarily, particularly conducive to a heritage argument. I think that's what's really missing from the current rhetoric and narrative that's coming from government. In the context of 1.5 million homes and all of the stuff that comes with that, what we mustn't lose sight of is the other things that go with that, like how to make sure that what we're building fits into existing communities, fits into existing places, that we're creating high quality buildings that actually serve the purpose which the government is saying it wants to achieve. Lots of people are aware of lots of different nuances to this whole argument, but at the moment, it's more important than ever to make sure that the heritage argument, and by that I mean the kind of importance of recognising the design quality and contextual arguments about how you knit these spaces into existing communities and the regeneration benefits, are all taken into account. It's interesting, because with this conference, one of the reasons we wanted to hold this conference now is 10 years on from the Cathedral Cities in Peril report that was done by Foster and Partners at least 10 years ago, a lot of those same arguments are still as relevant today as they were 10 years ago. And the concern is that those arguments haven't really moved on, and we're still fighting those same battles, and to make sure that those really specific things aren't lost in the headline of 1.5 million. So yes, I think it's actually quite a challenging time at the moment. All the more reason why we're doing this work now, because I don't think it's at all a given. I do think there's a lot of interest, and it's really interesting and encouraging to see local authorities, particularly in London, bringing forward Retrofit First policies like Camden, Westminster, City of London Corporation. But there's loads to do, and the concern is that, in fact, the government takes their foot off the pedal for net zero just at the time when we need it the most, and that these arguments around reuse get overshadowed by other things. The M&S campaign was really important, I think, in terms of focusing a lot of attention on the waste of the construction sector and of the potential benefits, both in terms of embodied energy, but also reusing and repurposing resources and buildings. And it's super-important that we don't lose that momentum and that we keep it in the public eye. 
 
David Taylor  
Yes, I was going to ask you about M&S. What were your feelings generally about the whole case, and also, you worked on Smithfield - perhaps a few words on that?
 
Henrietta Billings 
Smithfield Market became a campaign really close to us as an organisation, mainly because we fought not just one public inquiry, but two to stop it being majority demolished and absorbed into the city, cluster of towers, let's say. The last one was in 2015 and that was alongside the Victorian Society. We won that public inquiry, both on viability grounds, showing that the alternative proposal that we put forward had a good chance of success, but also on conservation grounds and the impact that the development would have on the surrounding conservation area. Anyway, the long and short of it was that as a result of winning that inquiry, which gave all parties time to consider other alternatives, we end up where we are now with the Museum of London taking it forward as their new home in 2026, to cut a very long story short (laughs). But I think it's a really interesting example of how sometimes, there's a lot of talk about blockers and people and obstructions to the planning system. But sometimes that's exactly what's needed, because you end up with a much better development at the end of it. I'd say that a lot of the campaigns and public inquiries and battles that we've been involved with have ended up with better results. It does tend to give you a longer-term gain. So yes, what's happening at Smithfield is really exciting and it's obviously become now much part of a bigger, cultural hub project, which will involve much more land around it. And we'll see what happens if the market buildings evolve into new uses in the future.
 
David Taylor  
Last question, because we're just up to time – you're launching your latest edition of the Buildings at Risk register later in June. Can you give us any hints as to what might be there, and indeed, explain a little bit about what this is, in terms of a barometer for heritage?
 
Henrietta Billings 
We've been running the buildings at risk register – this is an independent SAVE register of buildings at risk for the last 30 years now – and we have about 1400 entries on that list, and we monitor them on a yearly basis. Its purpose is to highlight the whole range of building types that come across our radar, basically, and that's through members of the public or conservation or campaign groups; people that are worried out about buildings where they live, basically. And they could be in different types of moments of distress, whether they've been just vacant for a few years, or really what you might describe as basket cases, tumble-down cottages in the woods. But there's a whole array of different types of kind of buildings at risk, and it can be through deliberate neglect or through planning applications for demolition. And the idea is that we keep these buildings in public awareness; that we ignite debate about what their possible reuses could be about, new potential owners, and we offer advice to individuals and community groups about how to get new proposals off the ground, particularly for community uses, and trying to reach as wide an audience as possible, to let people know that these buildings can actually, instead of being, if you like, burdens on the state, they can really be valuable assets and commercial drivers for regeneration investment in town centres or wherever they may lie. So, there's a whole public awareness driver around that. In terms of this year, we're going to be issuing a top 10 national list of buildings at risk. We haven't made that list public in any way yet. It will include a range of buildings from the 20th century, right back until I think probably the mid 18th century, and we've got some Art Deco cinemas in there, some really great some department stores and some rural buildings too. So, it's a really wide range of different building types from all over the country. It's worth also saying that our list, unlike Historic England's, does include non-listed buildings as well. So much of what our work is about the buildings that fall through the net, normally; that don't benefit from listing protection, or necessarily Conservation Area protection. And those are often ones that communities feel so strongly about, and we're really keen to fly the flag for.
 
David Taylor  
Well, even grade two listed buildings are still demolishable, aren't they?  
 
Henrietta Billings 
Well, they are, yes. As to M&S, I just wanted to say that this is the first time that heritage and sustainability had been centre stage at a public inquiry for a major building on a pretty major High Street, and it's this point that these issues on the M&S building on Oxford Street weren't just local to that part of Westminster. In fact, it brought up issues that are relevant to high streets across the country, right? Like, how do we deal with large-scale, multi storey department store buildings that need reinvention, new uses, but don't need demolition, because they're landmarks and they're also carbon and energy rich - and what a crazy waste. We'll look back in generations in the future and look back to these decades of demolition and just wonder what was going through our minds.
 
David Taylor  
Was yours a heritage defence, then? Or was it heritage plus energy?
 
Henrietta Billings 
Both. We had a sustainability witness who was Simon Sturgis. He was one of our principal witnesses, and Alec Forshaw was our planning and heritage witness. So, it was very much a double-fronted battle in terms of those two issues and yes, it really caught the public's imagination. We crowdsource-funded for a legal fee. It was literally us against M&S at the main public inquiry. And, yes, you know the story, obviously. We won the public inquiry but that was legally challenged by Marks and Spencer’s, and they won the legal challenge. And then it went back to the Secretary of State's redetermination. And with the new government they have now planning permission for demolition. The store, of course, is still open. And I think the mayor of London's plans for the pedestrianisation of Oxford Street will be really interesting. I really welcome that, to bring a new type of public realm through to a street that really needs some TLC.  Maybe it'll help M&S, think again about their plans, you know?
 
David Taylor  
Yeah, well, hmm! Not sure! (laughs) You can but hope! (laughs) Excellent. Thank you very much, Henrietta, that was fascinating. Thanks a lot.
 
Henrietta Billings 
No, you're welcome. Thanks a lot for including us!


David Taylor

David Taylor

Consultant Editor



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