IMS_Blog

The first is Listed Buildings. While various local authorities make more or less information available about the listed buildings within their boundaries (often to simply boast of their cultural heritage, or to aid in planning) finding out about the List of Buildings of Special Architectural and Historical Interest is insanely difficult. The simplest way may well be a Freedom of Information request! The listing of buildings is administered by English Heritage on behalf of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. My opinion is the onus ought to be on the governmental department to tell us what they consider to be of special interest, and why. The most frustrating thing about this situation is that it looks like there is an online interface to the computerised records, should you be a privileged organisation. Hopefully that will get opened up to the public so we can examine our heritage.

The other list I’ve wanted recently I know must exist in some form somewhere, but I don’t think its possible to consult at all. It has little to do with listed buildings (though a few may be listed): Post boxes. Why isn’t there a list of their locations? The Royal Mail must know where they are, in order to collect from them. It’s easy enough to find a post office but I can recall only one occasion when I’ve wanted to know the nearest post office while I can recall several when being able to find out the location of post boxes would have been very useful. Thinking about it, what would be really useful would be a list of post boxes with the location and last collection times…