Cooper has modern take on Scottish heritage

CAN Scottish business learn to love Historic Scotland? Malcolm Cooper, chief inspector of the Scottish Executive's powerful heritage body, might not aspire to love exactly, but he wants developers and wealth creators to know that he is on their side.

That is no small ambition. Historic Scotland - vulgarly known as Hysteric Scotland - has not traditionally been seen as the friend of commerce, or indeed as a body that frets over the economic impact of its own decisions.

The agency's job, for which it last year received £38 million from the public purse, is to preserve and enhance Scotland's rich historic environment. Should developers disagree on the need to preserve this or that historical site, or the best way to go about it, too bad.

Historic Scotland is empowered by Acts of Parliament to protect sites of national importance and structures of architectural or historical significance. This means its permission may be required before carrying out a loft conversion, let alone a retail conversion.

More than its southern equivalent, its word is law. As Cooper puts it "English Heritage advises the minister, in Scotland we are the minister."

While the need for such a body should be disputed by no-one, in practice there are plenty who moan. A well-established mythology depicts the body as a standard bearer of purest Scottish public sector bloody-mindedness, and a stranger to common sense.

HS has made enemies of developers and businessmen who have seen potential millions evaporating before their eyes after "interference" from the inspectorate. And the dinner tables of Scotland buzz with middle-class horror stories about how already expensive refurbishments of old properties have been rendered even more expensive and time-consuming by HS's insistence on this or that stipulation

Worse, its "nit-picking" decisions are seen by the ill-disposed as illogical for example objecting to the restoration of original features, and generally breaching the principle that - especially if he has forked heavily to buy and restore it - a Scotsman's castle is indeed his castle, and should not be subject to the officious intrusions of agents of the state on the use of reconstituted stonework.

While such images of HS's dedicated professional staff are no doubt unfair, the fact remains that the body has at least as much of an image problem as any of Scotland's well-populated and ponderous public agencies.

Against this background, Cooper's extending of the hand of co-operation to business has been all the more dramatic. An August meeting, organised by the Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce, at which all of Scotland's housebuilders and property developers were present, the softly-spoken former archeologist raised eyebrows around the table, firstly by the fact that he was prepared to engage in any dialogue with the business community, and then by his assertion that Historic Scotland understood the need to develop the importance of quick decisions and flexible thinking to develop the Edinburgh economy, even to the extent of knocking down old buildings.

Ron Hewitt, chief executive of Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce, said: "Meeting Malcolm and hearing his views has been a breath of fresh air.

"While the business community has been taking forward its plans for the economic development of the city that we believe is necessary for us to compete internationally, he has been helpful in showing us how to ease the planning process in a way that allows that to happen.

"It's hugely encouraging that he is showing an intelligent understanding of how heritage and newbuild can live side by side."

The most glaring symbol of Cooper's deliberate change of emphasis has been Caltongate, the £200m plan proposed by English developer Mountgrange to convert part of Edinburgh's historic old town. This involves knocking a hole in part of the old tenement streetscape of the Canongate to improve access to a complex containing shops and a five start hotel.

While the Historic Scotland of popular mythology would have said nyet, nyet, nyet, to what many residents of this neglected quarter of old Edinburgh are bitterly opposed to, Cooper has surprised many by approving the project in principle and making only minor objections to the details. How, ask the protestors, could Scotland's "heritage watchdog" (a term Cooper hates) give its blessing to a scheme that will see the bulldozing of listed buildings and irreparably change the face of one of Europe's most hallowed thoroughfares?

Cooper explains that once the decision was taken to approve the masterplan for regeneration of the old town seen as vital to the city's future needs, Historic Scotland saw the importance of facilitating what it was convinced was for greater economic good of the city.

Cooper is an advocate of the "big picture" and claims not to be obsessed with preserving non-unique listed buildings at the expense of new development that could have wider, environment-enhancing benefits.

In any case, he believes that there should be no automatic assumptions about heritage. In each case, questions must be asked as to why such and such a building is important and why it would be missed.

But if Cooper advocates a new flexibility on the issue of preserving the past, he hopes that business will meet him halfway, and do more to acknowledge that preserving historical character adds value.

If that concept seems like a no-brainer to many, there is plenty of evidence that Scotland has never completely rid itself of the 1960s mentality that advocated the destruction of great swathes of Georgian Edinburgh in favour of concrete monstrosities like the St James's Centre.

There is still too much bland and featureless modern development going on in Scotland to allow for disagreement on Cooper's point, that to confine awareness of "heritage" to education and tourism context is old-fashioned, and wasteful.

It is time, he says, to think about heritage in terms of what it will add in future, not about what it teaches about the past.

Cooper believes that the "character" inherent in old buildings is eminently exploitable and should be mirrored in nearby newbuild. It provides "points of identity in a fast changing environment", and that these points have measurable commercial value. There is he says a "pre-packaged latent potential" in old buildings, which is why the market adds 12-15 per cent premium on listed buildings over their unlisted equivalents.

Period features, he says, tell a story and there is always a market for stories.

The modernist architect Malcolm Fraser, who has worked with Historic Scotland on many projects - most recently on the HBOS Edinburgh headquarters on the Mound and currently on the adaptation of the Infirmary Street baths to house the Dovecot Studios tapestry centre - says: "Malcolm is great because he puts himself around, he comes and sees people and he is interested in listening as well as talking. Historic Scotland has changed. The understanding of the value of heritage is evolving, and I welcome their readiness to enjoy good modern work.

"The best way to work with them is in a spirit of co-operation. Don't go in there with the assumption that they are going to try to stop you doing things.

"The HBOS refurbishment is a good example of what Historic Scotland is advocating. Here is an important, hi-tech financial organisation that feels that their operations were enhanced in being in a historical building - in other words heritage and commerce working together to the benefit of both."

The chief inspector's belief is that only a vibrant development-friendly economy can guarantee a future for our past. Time, he says, for a more modern view of the ancient.

LIVING IN PAST

BORN in Exeter, and an archeologist by training, Malcolm Cooper spent ten years with English Heritage before joining Historic Scotland in April last year.

Responsible for a recently-restructured inspectorate of 110 staff, and a budget of £5.5 million, his teams identify and give statutory protection and consents for Scotland's historic environment, as well as dispensing grants for archeology and conservation programmes. Of Historic Scotland's 345 properties in care, Cooper's personal favourite is Kinnaird Head Lighthouse near Fraserburgh.

"I like it because what you have there is late mediaeval tower house, in the centre of which there is a Stevenson lighthouse," he says.

"It's one of the great romantic sites of Scotland, with an irresistibly interesting history, whether you are into ancient monuments, lighthouses or how buildings change their use over time."