Commentary on Sections Part 2 — Monuments of special historic interest Chapter 7 — General Section 61 — Works for preservation of scheduled monument in cases of urgency
203.Section 61 permits the Welsh Ministers to enter the site of a scheduled monument and undertake any works requiring authorisation under section 11 that the Welsh Ministers consider to be urgently necessary for its preservation. They must, however, have given 7 clear days’ written notice of their intention to every owner and occupier of the monument (subsection (2)). Subsection (4) provides that works carried out under this section are to be treated as authorised for the purposes of Chapter 3.
204.If works are carried out under this section to repair damage to a scheduled monument, any compensation order previously made in respect of the damage in favour of someone other than the Welsh Ministers under Chapter 2 of Part 7 of the Sentencing Code is enforceable (to the extent it has not already been complied with) as if it had been made in favour of the Welsh Ministers. Such a situation might arise, for instance, if a court were to make a compensation order in favour of a monument’s owner after the conviction of an offender for causing damage by unauthorised off-road driving. If the Welsh Ministers considered that the damage made urgent works necessary and undertook those works, any outstanding compensation would be transferred to the Welsh Ministers to defray the cost of the emergency intervention.