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Alarm raised over DCMS overruling official listing advice
Image © Ken Kirkwood
In news broken exclusively by the AJ, C20 Society and other heritage campaigners have voiced alarm after figures showed a leap in ministers rejecting advice to protect historic buildings from the Government’s own statutory advisor.
Analysis carried out by the Architects’ Journal using Freedom of Information, showed that 80% of the instances of ministers at the Department for Culture Media and Sport (DCMS) rejecting advice from Historic England to list historic buildings over the past five years have taken place in the last 12 months under Labour.
Recent rejections include Bath Fire Station (1938-39), Shoreditch Fire Station (1963-64), BBC Brookmans Park Transmitting Station (1928-29) and, we can reveal for the first time, Stansted Airport (Foster + Partners, 1991) – a truly groundbreaking design and one of the finest achievements of the High-Tech movement.
Image © Andrew Jankunas
In most cases, listing recommendations from Historic England are waved through by DCMS. From September 2021 to September 2025 there were just 10 instances of such advice being rejected, with eight of these occurring in the last year including three in September alone, the figures show. In every case, Historic England had recommended the building was listed at Grade II and in almost every case, the site in question was subject to development proposals, raising the question of whether the Government’s drive to remove the ‘blockers’ to economic growth is now imperilling our national heritage.
Twentieth century architecture has proved particularly unpopular among successive ministers, despite being as eligible for listing as any other period of architecture, providing they are more than 30 years’ old.
Successive governments, for example, have resisted calls for almost 35 years to list London’s Southbank Centre, a complex which includes the Hayward Gallery, the Purcell Rooms and Queen Elizabeth Hall.
Image © Dave Lowe
C20 Director, Catherine Croft, commented: ‘Historic England is the government’s official advisor on heritage, paid for by the taxpayer. So, if the minister wants to not follow its advice, I’d hope that they were doing it with the sound backing of some alternative and superior source of advice. But I don’t know where that would be coming from. There doesn’t seem to be any evidence that there is such a source of advice.’
A spokesperson for DCMS said: ‘We are absolutely committed to protecting and championing our national heritage…all decisions on listings are based on the Planning Act and Principles of Selection for Listed Buildings.’
Historic England declined to comment.
Chart courtesy of the AJ
