CONTEXT 184 : JUNE 2025 13 LEADERS OF CONSERVATION THOUGHT the skill lies in reconciling multiple different values. These values often work against each other, creating tension in conservation decisions. This applies to everything from replacing a timber to accommodating housing growth in a city. It is not about ranking values or ticking boxes. Instead, it is about uncovering the complexities of what matters, and why and to whom in any situation, and finding creative ways to reconcile conflicts between, for economic and cultural concepts of value. Values-based conservation plays out today in critical conservation methodologies – land-use planning, heritage and environmental impact assessment, conservation or management planning, community engagement, and facilitation or evaluation. Each involves using an understanding of what matters, and why and to whom to inform about decisions, alongside grappling with technical issues and working within the context of the legislation. Understanding cultural values alongside economic value is also relevant to appraisal, business cases and funding applications for conservation activities, projects and organisations. Origins The roots of some of this work lie in London and Australia in the 1980s. James Semple Kerr, a former Qantas quality engineer, relocated to London with his wife Joan Kerr. In the evenings they studied with Nikolaus Pevsner at Birkbeck college, learning to ‘read’ buildings. Joan became an eminent art historian and Jim one of the earliest students on the fledgling York conservation course, writing a thesis on convict architecture. Returning to Australia, Jim joined the National Trust, which was benefitting from the sudden (and rare) injection of funding to the new Australian Heritage Commission, supported by the 1972 Whitlam Government. At the same time, people such as Sharon Sullivan in the New South Wales parks and wildlife services were in the forefront of establishing protocols for cultural landscapes, heavily influenced by Indigenous perspectives on culture, heritage and landscape. These themes of a contested history, a nascent Australian built heritage conservation discipline often working with very recent structures that might not even be seen as heritage in a European context, and the challenge that Indigenous cultural heritage philosophies and values brought to land and place management, came together in the Australian Burra Charter. First published in 1979, the charter was drafted by a group including Jim Kerr, Jane Lennon, Peter Watts, Josephine Flood, Peter Forrest and Richard Mulvaney. Concepts of value were not new in heritage conservation, but previous heritage charters had implicitly assumed shared common values. The Burra Charter challenged that assumption. It also grounded heritage thinking as a process flowing from understanding through values and current issues to setting policies for dealing with change. As a new and different way of thinking about heritage conservation, Sharon Sullivan and others ensured that the Burra Charter was rolled out with an extensive education programme and resources, and a later initiative around natural heritage. Australian heritage agencies soon followed with other values-based guidance on local heritage, migrant heritage, social value, community mapping and engaging with communities. Sadly, the rapid expansion of resources under the Whitlam government was short-lived and that flurry of creative thinking was curtailed. Values-based thinking in the UK The (then) Heritage Lottery Fund was key to bringing that more inclusive, values-based thinking to the UK. Australian architect Susan Macdonald came to the UK, initially to work in Peter Inskip’s office before joining John Fidler’s team in English Heritage. Susan had been in the forefront of innovative thinking in the New South Wales Heritage Office in the 1990s and Peter was a trustee of the Heritage Lottery Fund. Facing some complex decisions about major investments in heritage sites such as Whitby, Peter suggested that values-based conservation planning might both help the HLF make better decisions, and empower applicants to understand what was important, and think about the long-term care and management of the site. John Barnes, then of the English Heritage major projects team, asked for help because (as an industrial archaeologist) I was familiar with Jim Kerr’s work and thinking. Under the visionary and inclusive chairmanship of Liz Forgan, the HLF was already challenging established approaches. Its origins in the National Heritage Memorial Fund meant that, unlike other established agencies, it was not confined to heritage silos, but could work across landscapes, collections, biodiversity and buildings, and movable heritage. It was already taking a people-based approach, recognising the need to support both technical conservation and heritage activities, and supporting a diverse range of groups and organisations through such projects as Young Roots or the work on public parks. Judy Cligman commissioned the HLFs own guidance on Conservation Plans for Historic Places, published in 1998. Because it built on UK thinking, it was very different to Jim Kerr’s earlier guidance (1982). The HLF approach Nikolaus Pevsner taught James Semple and Jean Kerr how to ‘read’ buildings.
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