There is an ongoing in the heritage sector around “responsible retrofit” and what these words really mean to individual owners. As part of the Heritage Counts steering committee, the Club and working with Historic England to help develop guidance for owners to help them retrofit their properties and achieve better energy efficiency.

The Club is pushing for responsible retrofit to not just include large renovations, but also to look at the smallest interventions that can have the biggest impact. Minor changes that leave the majority of a property intact should be not just allowed, but encouraged, because these add up to prevent much larger and more objectionable changes being needed later on.

The present landscape works the opposite way, with minor changes prevented to protect the historic fabric, and when the building falls into disuse and is at risk of demolition very large changes are seen as the only option. The result is more fabric is lost and the buildings spends far more time being far less efficient, pushing owners away and making living in a listed building much harder.