As part of our work in trying to look after the built heritage of the Yorkshire Dales, we carry out regular condition surveys of over 1,800 listed buildings in the National Park. This was first done in 1991 and is now carried out on a rolling five-year basis, covering about 20% of the National Park each year. This work is in line with the Government’s requirement for Local Authorities to have up-to-date evidence about their historic environment (National Planning Policy Framework, §169),Historic England’s (formerly English Heritage) Heritage at Risk campaign, and Objectives A2 and A8 of the Yorkshire Dales National Park Management Plan 2013-18.
The information gathered from the Listed Buildings Condition Surveys is logged on the Authority’s Historic Environment Record. Aggregate figures are published, but not assessments of individual buildings – the trend over the last few years is a reduction in the number of buildings in the National Park which are considered to be ‘at risk’.
Most listed buildings are well cared for by their owners. However, in some cases, sufficient resources or expertise may not be at hand, so we would like to work with owners to ensure that their property’s special architectural and historic qualities are maintained and the building does not deteriorate further. The Authority can give you basic guidelines for the repair and maintenance of historic buildings and provide you with contact details of specialists who have expertise in assessing and working with heritage assets in the Yorkshire Dales. Furthermore, we also have a very small budget to support owners to repair or consolidate some of the listed structures that are ‘vulnerable’ or ‘at risk’.
If you have any questions please get in touch with the Historic Environment Team.
