Hansard

I very much welcome this opportunity to explore the co-operation between Historic Scotland and local authorities, which the minister has enhanced today with the announcement about how such co-operation will proceed. The joint working agreements and pilot scheme that Iain Smith mentioned are a great step forward, with delegated powers being given to local authorities. They underline the message that we are all responsible for our landscape, and that we ought to be able to understand it and have the backing of the statutory authorities to ensure that it is looked after.

Landscapes and townscapes vary greatly throughout the country. In the past 30 years alone, we have found out about 60 per cent more information about prehistory thanks to the Ordnance Survey's better methods. As a result, a vast backlog of interpretation has to be undertaken. Will the minister help us in that regard by ensuring that the booklets that explain Scottish historic environment policy include one on interpretation? We have to examine how Historic Scotland and other bodies work together to bring out the stories in which particular buildings and monuments play a part.

There is little interpretation of sites that people do not pay to enter. As a result, the whole history can be missed. I am interested in the interpretation of such sites—it would be easy to do. I represent Orkney, where the world heritage site is an excellent example of co-ordination between Historic Scotland and the local authority.

Scattered throughout Scotland are properties and places associated with particular episodes in Scottish history, such as the Jacobites, the development of the Christian church, the wars of independence and the clearances. Historic Scotland and the NTS have a responsibility to present to the public how a particular building or site relates to the development of our nation's story. Interpretation will follow and prosper if there is greater involvement between Historic Scotland, the local authorities and our communities.

We all agree that community planning should be much more involved with the historic landscape. Local people are often the best guardians of sites and information that could be better interpreted if they got backing. I look forward to the minister's response to that point.

I am delighted to note the extra money for the conservation area regeneration scheme. Perhaps it will be spent on some of the incomplete exercises of the past five years and on new exercises that have not yet begun. For example, a lot of work is going on in Wick. In conservation areas such as Argyle Square in Pulteneytown, for which Thomas Telford created the plans and in which people then built their houses, Historic Scotland imposes strong restrictions on what people's windows can look like. Although there is cash to support window replacement, Historic Scotland sometimes goes over the top in trying to recreate the 18th and 19th centuries. The other half of Argyle Square has been altered by the addition of a glass panel in the area outside the church, and at the other end of the square a very unsightly shop takes up a corner site. If we are going to do the job properly, there must be investment in the whole of Argyle Square. Many of the residents would like to see proposals that are part of a wider plan from Historic Scotland, rather than receive rather curt treatment when seeking to replace their windows.

I am delighted that we have the support of HEACS in ensuring that every public body has a duty of care and that concordats—a useful word with an historical resonance—will be developed. I am also delighted that the issues will be debated, because such debates allow people to feel involved. I very much welcome the minister's commitment to the approach and I hope to see its fruits in due course.