I WOULD like to respond to the letter (March 6) from residents of Hastings Pool regarding the Hastings Pool potting shed.

Firstly, ‘curtilage’ in the context of listed building legislation has no legal definition, and is not necessarily related to land ownership.

My point is that the new access and fencing to the main gardens of Barnards Green House has visually and functionally separated off the wooded site from the house and its gardens, and it could be interpreted as no longer being within the curtilage.

However, I have accepted the council’s interpretation and have applied for consent as if it were.

Secondly, since the potting shed was damaged in an arson attack in 2005, the roof was subsequently repaired or largely replaced, and external brickwork painted to cover the effects of the fire.

Works which do not affect the architectural or historic character of a listed building do not need consent (repairs ‘like with like’ fit into that category), and therefore an application was not made to cover these works.

There is no evidence that the shed was designed by Loudon in the "Georgian era".

Rather, as the Rock-Davidson Associates report states, it is almost certainly Victorian and only, "fits J C Loudon’s 1830 description of a potting shed/house".

Marcus Cleaver

Architect

Malvern