MINISTER LISTENS TO PROBLEMS FACED BY OWNERS OF THATCHED HOMES

Thatchers and owners of listed thatched properties have been watching in horror as the recent torrential rain threatens to once again devastate the thatching straw harvest. Ruined crops in 2007 led to an acute shortage of thatching straw. Thatchers urgently require a good quality harvest to make up for lost time in repairing homes with leaking roofs and restoring those without thatch that have been devastated by fire during the last winter.

Many home owners seeking listed building consent to use alternative materials are being forced to wait for nominated types of wheat straw by English Heritage policy and unsympathetic local conservation officers; who refuse to accept viable alternatives. If this situation is allowed to continue, without raw materials thatchers will be forced to find other employment and home owners will face deterioration to the properties they love and work so hard to maintain.

Everybody agrees that thatch is too valuable a part of England’s traditional rural heritage to allow thatched roofs to deteriorate to a point when they become unviable to maintain.

Earlier this year, there was an adjournment debate on thatched roofs and planning policy when the Rt Hon Sir George Young, Member of Parliament for North West Hampshire, prompted by a desperate constituent living under thatch that could not be replaced, asked the Minister for Communities and Local Government, Iain Wright, whether there could be more flexibility in planning policy.

Following the Adjournment Debate, Marjorie Sanders and Roger Angold, from the National Society of Master Thatchers, went to a meeting with the Minister. This was arranged by Sir George Young, and was attended by officials from the Department for Communities and Local Government and from English Heritage.

Sir George said that the meeting was very constructive. “The Minister explained that there would be legislation on heritage matters in the next session of Parliament, which could give Parliament the opportunity to revisit the rules about thatched cottages. He also said that the relevant PPG’s were in the process of being revised. After the meeting, I asked the NSMT to produce revised guidance on thatching for the new PPG, which I would send to the Minister.”