Jodrell Bank could become World Heritage Site

Jodrell Bank has been identified as a prime contender to win World Heritage Site status under new rules designed to recognise the importance of scientific installations. Changes to the guidelines on how World Heritage Sites should be selected are being drawn up and will be debated in the summer. The rules, agreed in principle at a conference in London this week, will allow scientific centres such as Jodrell Bank to line up alongside the Egyptian Pyramids and the Great Barrier Reef.

World Heritage status has been reserved until now for human structures with a long history, such as the Taj Mahal, or important natural features such as the Galápagos Islands. The guidelines, however, preclude many of the locations that have proved pivotal to scientific research in the past 50 to 100 years. Officials hope that by drawing up fresh guidelines they can recognise more recent scientific centres that have played important roles in research and discovery.

Jodrell Bank, which is part of the Universty of Manchester, is regarded as a technological and cultural landmark behind a series of important discoveries in astronomy. It came to prominence in 1957 when it tracked the Sputnik carrier rocket and for years afterwards it was Britain’s only early-detection system for ballistic missile attacks.

The experts meeting to debate the Unesco World Heritage Convention proposals were hosted by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. The final decision will be taken by the World Heritage Committee in Quebec in July.

Jodrell Bank was one of only two scientific installations cited at the meeting this week as being of the type of scientific installation that would be important enough to qualify. The other was Cern, the European laboratory for particle physics on the Franco-Swiss border. The Royal Observatory in Greenwich is one of the few scientific centres included among the 851 existing World Heritage Sites recognising places of outstanding natural or cultural importance. Similarly, the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, has been made a World Heritage Site, but neither achieved the status because of its scientific achievements alone.

Christopher Young, head of world heritage for English Heritage, which advises the Government on the suitability of sites, said: “The World Heritage Convention is about cultural heritage and science is one very important part of that. The sort of place we might be looking at for would be a place of major importance in advancing understanding of the world around us. A good example of that is Jodrell Bank. It’s clearly very important.”

The Times pages 15 and 20, 26 January 2008