In focus: Heritage shake-up promises streamlined protection

The Government's recent White Paper on heritage protection aims to strip out the bureaucracy of the system, clarify the process of listing, and make it fairer and more accessible.

The proposals are largely focused on reforming the position in England and Wales. However, they also contain UK-wide proposals for developing an improved system of marine heritage protection

For the first time, house owners would be consulted when their house is being considered for listing. They would have the right to appeal; it would be easier to make changes to complex listed sites; and in England the power to list buildings would be devolved to English Heritage (EH) from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS). See below for how the proposals relate to Wales.

The proposed legislative framework has received wide support following public consultation which started in 2003. However, it will be a little time yet before the new regime is up and running. Primary legislation is needed and the Government has also just started consulting on three other specific issues.

First, should conservation area consent be removed as a specific consent and merged with planning permission?

If this is carried out the merger would be combined with amendments to the Demolition Direction to ensure planning permission would be required for the demolition of an unlisted building in a conservation area, and amendments to the General Development Order.

The second issue that DCMS is keen to explore is whether it would make sense - and be helpful - to produce new statutory guidance promoting pre-application assessment and discussion for all major planning applications which may affect historic assets.

Thirdly, in the spirit of giving developers greater certainty, should the current operation of Certificates of Immunity be expanded to enable an application to be made at any time, and for a site as well as an individual building?

That aside, what's in prospect courtesy of the White Paper? Central to the proposed new heritage protection regime is the recommendation to create a single combined 'Register' of all protected sites, monuments, gardens, archaeological sites and marine wrecks and to use a single, simple consent application procedure for all these different types of heritage sites, bar marine wrecks.

To balance the increase in rights for owners in the new system, protection would be brought in to stop the hasty demolition of buildings during the period when they are being considered for listing.

In headline terms the proposed changes should mean that a faster, more open system would be devolved in England to EH. As a result:

• the DCMS would no longer make listing decisions -responsibility for designation will rest with EH
• decisions would be made more quickly and to agreed targets
• EH would open up the system and consult owners when property is being considered for designation
• interim legal protection would be introduced for historic assets being proposed for designation - to protect from hasty demolition
• owners would have a new right to appeal against a decision
• EH would clarify the process of designation by publishing its selection guides for buildings. Other guides will follow for other types of historic asset.

Under the proposed reforms set out in the White Paper, one simple system would unite all significant historic sites and buildings.

This would mean that all listed buildings and scheduled monuments would be called 'designated' buildings and sites and recorded in a combined 'Register' as part of a unified national designation system - binding together archaeology and buildings for the first time.

The expectation is that the designations grade I, grade II* and grade II would eventually be extended to all national assets on land.

The Register would include historic marine sites and sites of early human activity without structures, in addition to historic buildings, archaeological sites, parks, gardens, battlefields and World Heritage Sites.

As a result, applying for consent for works should become much easier. Firstly, a single 'Historic Asset Consent' would replace separate Listed Building Consent and Scheduled Monument Consent.

Local councils would administer all Historic Asset Consents. EH would continue to give local authorities formal advice where appropriate. And subject to consultation (as already indicated), conservation area consent would be merged with planning permission.

As part of the proposed new package, a new type of 'Heritage Partnership Agreement' is proposed between owners, managers, councils and EH. The expectation is that this would cut time-consuming consent administration and encourage strategic management of large sites.

Owners of sites such as large estates, which have many similar assets under single management, would be able to avoid the need for multiple consent applications. EH would help negotiate single consent agreements for sites that stretch across many local authority boundaries, such as stations on underground lines.

Under this new regime consent could be provided in advance for a large number of agreed works on complex sites such as university campuses and housing estates.

In addition, owners of archaeological sites under cultivation would be able to take part in a management agreement allowing them to be able to work protected land.

The new set-up should mean that protection for vulnerable sites will be strengthened. In the case of World Heritage Sites there would be a requirement for greater notification of major developments and strengthened protection against minor works.

There would also be better protection for archaeological sites on cultivated land. Marine sites and assets, of which there will be an extended range, would enjoy similar protection to that given to terrestrial assets. The designation regime would now include complex sites of early human activity that do not have structures.

And, subject to consultation, locally designated buildings could be protected from demolition and greater controls restored over conservation areas.

In one sense these reforms are already under way as listing administration was handed over to EH in 2005. It has promised to expand its programme of training and capacity-building for local authorities and provide them with clear guidance on new issues such as developing partnership agreements, changes to local designation and setting up their own local Historic Environment Records.

For its part, DCMS has pledged to continue to work with EH to improve the listing system and develop a programme of public consultation on new designation priorities. The department is also beginning work on developing new selection criteria for designating historic assets under the new system.

There has been a general welcome for the proposals, many of which are widely considered to be long overdue.

An area of concern, borne out by research sponsored by the Government, is the availability of suitably qualified staff in some local authorities. Some have no dedicated conservation officers and in others existing staff are seriously overstretched.

Perhaps not surprisingly, some organisations have suggested it would make sense for there to be a statutory obligation on local authorities to have suitably qualified conservation staff to advise on all heritage matters.

• Although it shares the same primary legislation with England, important elements of the current heritage protection system are managed differently in Wales. Currently statutory responsibility rests with the National Assembly for Wales and is administered by Cadw, the division within the Welsh Assembly Government.

However, from later this year, the latter will take on the statutory responsibility in this area.

At present primary legislation relating to the historic environment is shared with England. The expectation is that under the proposed changes Welsh ministers would be given equivalent powers to English ministers, including the making of subordinate legislation.

As in England the intention is that in Wales there would be a new unified statutory system for designations. However, DCMS does not see any need in Wales for a major change on selection criteria.

Neither does it envisage any change in the existing arrangements whereby applications for Scheduled Monument Consent for works are determined by the Welsh Assembly Government through Cadw.

View the 'Heritage Protection for the 21st Century - White Paper - Consultation' here.

Roger Milne

15 March 2007