Appeals: London Conservation Area Conference

Mornington Terrace, late Georgian brick houses, in Camden Town, London. The terrace is in one of London's 489 conservation areas - neighbourhoods deemed of architectural importance and worthy of protection - and the subject of the London Conservation Area Conference, a one-day meeting at the end of November, writes Joanna Gibbon. The GEORGIAN GROUP is organising the event, together with the Ancient Monuments Society, the Victorian Society, SAVE Britain's Heritage, the Association of Conservation Officers, and the Ladbroke Association, an amenity society for Notting Hill.

The conference, chaired by Dame Jennifer Jenkins, is intended for anyone interested in conservation and will include speeches by Sophie Andreae, of English Heritage, Rosemarie MacQueen, of the Association of Conservation Officers, Robert Key, of the Department of National Heritage, and Marcus Binney, of SAVE Britain's Heritage. The conference organisers will argue the case for increased Conservation Area powers for local authorities: they contend, especially, that the concept of 'permitted developments' is too widely interpreted by many borough councils, resulting in precedents which further undermine an area.

Founded in 1937, the Georgian Group is concerned with preventing the destruction of Georgian architecture and was partly responsible for the introduction of listing buildings of historic or architectural importance in 1947. It is now one of the five national, charitable, amenity societies in England and Wales all of whom were given legal consultative status by the Town and Country Planning Act (1971): the group must therefore be consulted about works involving alteration or demolition of listed buildings within the 'Georgian' period, which is taken to mean between 1700 and 1840. Tickets for the conference, priced pounds 30 plus VAT, and further information about membership of the Georgian Group, are available from: The Georgian Group, 37 Spital Square, London E1 6DY, telephone 071-377 1722.

(Photograph omitted)