56 CONTEXT 185 : SEPTEMBER 2025 Vox pop Justin Webber Who has been your greatest inspiration? The best things are a product of lots of people working together. That said, I was very lucky when I graduated to work in a very supportive environment at Watford Borough Council with Sian FinneyMacdonald and Christian Brady. If the future is larger unitary authorities, then hopefully this will mean bigger teams of conservation officers, with graduate positions and more structured learning. What has been your best idea? Doing a combined management plan for all the conservation areas in Watford was a satisfying bit of work, as was doing a detailed document on local listing (which Historic England picked up as a good example at the time). I borrowed much of the format from another local authority nearby and have seen others kick on with better work since (not least past colleagues here at Leicester with the equivalent document for the city). Working with a local contractor to remove satellite dishes in conservation areas has been very satisfying in a low-key way (cheap, high impact and removing something that is increasingly redundant visual clutter). Creating a taster morning on jobs in the built environment sector for our inner-city state schools in Leicester has also been very rewarding. What would you like to have been if you had not become a conservationist? I was employed as a town planner, so that is one answer. Being in planning policy can be quite painfully divorced from more dynamic change and being in development management can be something of a production line, so the more varied work in building conservation is a better deal. As children, after watching Due South, my friend Rory and I decided he would be a Mountie and I would work in a national park in Canada. Disappointingly, we are both working in planning departments in England. How do you reply when at a party someone asks what you do? Being neither young or notably cool or important, this does not crop up often. Something about working with historic buildings and spaces. It’s not a conversation killer like HR or IT. What is the biggest frustration in your job? Procurement can be about as much fun as cross-country running in torrential rain, but I do get that there are good intentions sitting behind it all. Some of the heritage that was lost in the 20th century in a place like Leicester is pretty galling. On a day-to-day basis, seeing people trash shopfronts or install plastic windows. We have a decent track record on enforcement, but the environmental cost of getting people to replace the bad works they have just done is regrettable. What would you like to be doing in five years’ time? I have been very blessed with my current role with interesting opportunities emerging along the way, including chairing the RTPI Urban Design Network and working with townscape heritage initiatives and heritage action zones. We are now one of the National Lottery Heritage Fund ‘heritage places’ and are being supported by the Architectural Heritage Fund with developing a new heritage development trust, so more interesting projects are unfolding. New Walk Museum, Leicester (Photo: NotFromUtrecht, Wikimedia)
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