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Casework

Casework is at the heart of what C20 is all about. We campaign to save irreplaceable buildings we love and think are outstanding.

Read about our latest Casework news here.

Below are more reflective articles by our Caseworkers.

Our expertise is recognised by our official role in the planning process. The Twentieth Century Society has to be consulted about any application for listed building consent involving demolition, anywhere in England. Although we don’t have the same legal role in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, we are often asked to give our views on the future of important buildings of our period there.

We get to hear about threated buildings by lots of other routes too, and our members and supporters are always alert to threats and quick to let us know about them. Most societies like ours (such as the Victorian Society or the Ancient Monuments Society) can reckon on almost all the buildings of their period that should be listed already being safely included on the National Heritage List for England, which is run by Historic England. That’s not the case for us, and putting buildings forward for listing is a big part of what we do, and often a crucial early step in a campaign. We’ve called for much wider recognition for groups of C20 buildings, by designation of conservation areas, but generally our resources mean that we can only lend support to individual buildings if they are already listed, or we think they deserve to be.

Most churches in England and Wales do not need to apply for listed building consent and changes are managed through a separate system. C20 Society has to be consulted on these too, and has a specialist caseworker who does this.

We encourage architects, developers and owners to consult with us before they put in planning applications, so that we can explain why we think a building is important and try to help them find solutions which meet their needs and preserve what’s special about it. Sometimes that’s not possible and we end up lobbying hard against the granting of permission. The caseworkers present cases at the monthly meeting of our expert Casework Committee, who guide them and can also advise on lobbying press, working with local groups and coming up with positive suggestions for alternative design approaches, or more radical lateral ideas.

In the last resort, if an application we’ve fought against gets permission, we can sometimes reverse the decision at a public inquiry or consistory court hearing, chaired by a planning inspector, or lawyer, who will make a recommendation to the Secretary of State. We have to think very carefully about whether to do this as it is very time consuming and can be expensive.

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South Bank Centre

Catherine Croft recently took part in a panel discussion organised by the New London Architecture forum, at which the competing pressures of heritage and development were debated. Also on the panel were representatives from the South Bank Centre, a...

Birmingham Central Library

Despite our best endeavours and those of the Friends of Birmingham Central Library, the City’s planning committee has passed major plans for a city-centre redevelopment scheme that includes the demolition of John Madin’s monumental Birmingham Cen...

Broadgate, City of London

Although English Heritage supported our opposition to the granting of a Certificate of Immunity (which guarantees a building against listing for five years), the Culture Secretary rejected heritage advice and granted a COI for the parts of Phase 1-4 ...

Preston Bus Station

Claimed to be the largest building of its kind in Britain upon its completion in 1969 and recently called a ‘baroque cathedral for buses’, Preston Bus Station is certainly the largest building ever designed by Keith Ingham - working at the time...

’Re-discovered’ Annan mural in school library

by Henrietta Billings We have recently been to look at one of Dorothy Annan's few surviving murals, in Cayley Primary School in Tower Hamlets, East London. Still fixed in its original location, the large textured glass and plaster panel, concealed u...

The Elliott School (The Ark Putney Academy)

Elliott School, Putney: comprehensively outstanding

Since January this year the Grade II-listed Elliott School in Putney has become a major case for the Society. Plans to convert it into an academy have brought a wave of proposals, including an upgrade of indoors sports facilities, Disability ...

Still fit for purpose: The Old Gym, Birmingham

You might not notice the Old Gym building, nestled into a sloping site by the grand red-brick late Victorian Aston Webb buildings on the University of Birmingham’s Edgbaston campus. At first glance, this three-storey brick building next to ...

40 New Bond Street: an Italian grotto in Mayfair

A totally unexpected treat awaits visitors to the Edwardian commercial premises of 39-42 New Bond Street. Initially designed for the tailors Cooling Lawrence and Son, no 40 has been occupied since 1910 by Mallett and Son and then by Frank Smythson Lt...

Hemel Hempstead MLO: ‘It’s like a bloody cathedral’

Aldington, Craig and Collinge’s Mechanised Letter Office in Hemel Hempstead was commissioned by the Post Office in the early 1980s in response to the newly-introduced mechanised letter sorting. The complex comprises three dramatic white she...

Dawson’s Heights: the ‘Italian’ hill town in Dulwich

Dawson’s Heights, an important but little-known postwar housing estate in East Dulwich, has been turned down for listing by the Secretary of State, despite a strong recommendation from English Heritage. Built in 1964-72, the striking design takes ...