The Heritage At Risk list, the first of its kind in Europe, amounts to an official register listing all of England's protected heritage sites deemed to be at risk. It means that owners and developers of property on the list are unlikely to be able to make major changes without permission.
It would cover, for example, development of an old Victorian Hospital and mean that anything deemed as 'inappropriate' development might not get planning permission.
'This is the most detailed picture ever gathered of the true state of the nation's heritage,' said Dr Simon Thurley, chief executive of English Heritage. He dismissed claims it was a 'name and shame' exercise and said it was vital for the UK's fragile heritage preservation.
He added that a systematic survey of heritage sites would enable the prioritising of the most urgent cases, and allow for the development of solutions which could be applied to the country as a whole.
He also urged local authorities to use the list to clamp down on property owners and developers. 'We urge local authorities to use the powers they have more often to serve Repairs and Urgent Works Notices, and indeed English Heritage will help fund them to do so. Local authorities can also help to protect registered battlefields, which have no formal protection, by declaring them a conservation area, and can make sure that the historic parks and listed buildings at risk in their own care are restored to glory for the benefit of the community.'
He gave Newbury Battlefield in Berkshire, as an example of an historical site threatened by development. It marked the turning point of the English Civil War in 1643. Already some of the south-eastern periphery of the battlefield is built over and the A34 Newbury bypass clips a corner of it. The battlefield is principally at risk from renewed development pressures for housing.
The organisation is also appealing to developers to work with the register rather than against it. One example of how this has worked recently is Keeling House, Claredale Street, Tower Hamlets, in London. The 16 storey block of flats was built in 1957-59 to the design of Denys Lasdun and regarded as an important example of post-war housing embodying Lasdun's ideas of urban renewal. Suffering from structural decay and threatened with demolition in the early 1990s, the block was sold by Tower Hamlets Council and has been successfully refurbished by a developer as private flats.