Earlier this year, to mark our 25th anniversary, SAVE published Grand Ideas for the Nation's Heritage, a report outlining 25 ideas for future conservation policy. It contained suggestions ranging from putting records and other information about historic building on the Internet and giving local communities a say in protecting historic landscapes to arguing for a fundamental shift from repair to maintenance and for the reuse of empty space above shops. The report was very well received and was the subject of a leader in Country Life. Hard copies of the report are available from the SAVE office for £3.00 (£2.40 for Friends) including postage within the UK.

Grand Ideas has also been praised by participants in the Government's current Heritage Policy Review for proposing practical measures to tackle wider philosophical issues. As the Review process winds towards its conclusion (the final report is due to be published in November) it has been pleasing to note how many of SAVE proposals outlined in Grand Ideas at the beginning of the year have emerged as core elements of the Review's thinking.

SAVE has been represented on one of the Review's five working parties and participating in the process in this way has proven to be an interesting experience. On the one hand the debates in the working groups and responses to the consultation have been very stimulating, and revealed greater consensus than might have been expected; on the other hand, we share the concern of many others that it will prove almost impossible to distil both the nuances of the philosophical underpinning and the vast range of practical policy recommendations into a final report that must be easily digestible, politically palatable, well illustrated and only thirty pages long. Can it be both visionary and practical, comprehensive and accessible and consider both the short and the long term in only thirty colourful pages?

Even if the report does succeed in squaring this circle the danger is that, whilst welcomed by Government, it will be quietly forgotten. There is no commitment to implement its findings. Sadly, despite findings from a MORI poll commissioned for the Review revealing overwhelming public support for and interest in the historic environment, conservation remains of very little interest to Government. The strategy over the last few years for both English Heritage and organisations like SAVE has been to stress the relevance of the historic environment to areas of policy that are of real concern to Labour, most notably regeneration. However, that approach has yet to yield substantial benefits - in this summer's comprehensive spending review the historic environment gained nothing whilst many departments and sectors were able to headline substantial increases in spending, including other areas of cultural activity.

The real impact of the Review may be felt at English Heritage. The new chairman, Sir Neil Cossons, who arrived as the review process was getting underway, is taking the Review very seriously indeed. He seems keen for the future direction and policy of the organisation to be determined by the review's findings - for it to provide a bedrock and underpinning to EH's work. In this way the Review could yet have a profound and long term impact on the future of the historic environment in England. We await the final report with interest.

Urban White Paper - Imminent