To ask the Minister of the Environment to detail (i) the process for having a building listed on the Built Heritage at Risk register; (ii) the categories of need which exist within the Register; and (iii) the qualifying criteria for each category.

I have shown significant commitment to supporting the historic environment. Despite the significant budget cut of 10.4%, the most severe cut imposed on any Department, I have been able to allocate £594,000 funding from the Carrier Bag Levy Scheme, to assist with repairs and maintenance of buildings that provide facilities for community access and use.

Recognising the particular difficulties caused in the 2015-16 Executive budget for my Department, I also submitted a bid for Built Heritage funding in the 2015 June Monitoring Round, but this was not successful. The financial constraints imposed by the 2015-16 budget mean, however, that I am currently unable to provide extra funding for listed building grant-aid. My officials are working on proposals for future support arrangements for heritage buildings and structures that recognise reduced budgets and focus on priority categories. I hope to publish draft proposals for comment early in the New Year. Any such arrangements will then be considered within the overall budget available to Departments for 2016-17 and beyond.

The Built Heritage at Risk register (BHARNI) has proved a valuable mechanism by which to identify buildings at risk, and to seek to focus effort on preserving them. There are currently 496 structures on the BHARNI; of these 199 are houses. Of the houses on the register, one is recorded as being fully occupied, and nine are recorded as being partially occupied. The remainder are recorded as being unoccupied.

Since 2006, 189 buildings have been removed from BHARNI, a very significant achievement due to the efforts of many individuals and organisations. The target of 200 buildings being removed from the register by 2016 was put in place in 2006, before the recession and its very significant impacts on the property market. My Department continues to work with owners and others to protect buildings which remain on the register, within the context that primary responsibility for the maintenance of any building rests with its owners.

My Department has recently agreed with the Ulster Architectural Heritage Society, which maintains the BHARNI register on behalf of my Department, for the Society to complete a review of this work over the last ten years, with the review to include recommendations on whether and, if so how, the register should be taken forward. I anticipate this review being completed in the first half of 2016, then allowing decisions on the place that the register has in the continuing, collaborative efforts to realise the value of our historic environment.

In the meantime, buildings can be proposed for adding to the register if they are vacant with no identified new use; suffering from neglect and/or poor maintenance; suffering from structural problems; fire damaged; unsecured and open to the elements; or threatened with demolition. The decision of whether to add a building to the register is made by my Department taking account of professional advice. My Department also assigns an identifier to each building listed on the register, as follows:

A. Immediate risk of further rapid deterioration or loss of fabric; no solution agreed.

B. Immediate risk of further rapid deterioration or loss of fabric; solution agreed but not yet implemented.

C. Slow decay; no solution agreed.

D. Slow decay; solution agreed but not yet implemented.

E. Under repair or in fair to good repair, but no user identified; or under threat of vacancy with no obvious new user (applicable only to buildings capable of beneficial use).

F. Repair scheme in progress and (where applicable) end use or user identified; functionally redundant buildings with new use agreed but not yet implemented.

Buildings are removed from the Register when they are fully repaired/ consolidated, their future secured, and where appropriate, occupied or in use.

The register will be back online, following IT work, on 14 December 2015.

The Second Survey of Buildings of Architectural and Historic Interest is another significant project being progressed by my Department to identify and designate buildings to ensure that they are appropriately considered when determining planning applications and the like. The cuts to my Department’s budget for 2015-16 have also impacted progress on the survey, as they led to the termination of an external contract to survey buildings. My officials have developed proposals to target work to address key risks by 2020, within a potentially extended timeframe for the survey given the current uncertainties about future budget provision.