Heritage Protection Review
In July 2003 the consultation paper regarding protecting our historic environment sets out proposals for improving the system for protecting buildings, above and below ground archaeology and other land-based heritage assets.
The proposals contained in the consultation document aimed to deliver:
- A positive approach to managing the historic environment which would be transparent, inclusive, effective and sustainable and central to social, environmental and economic agendas at a local and community as well as national level
- An historic environment legislative framework that provided for the management and enabling of change rather than its prevention.
In July 2004, the Government published its report on the consultation review of heritage protection. The report summarises responses to the consultation and sets out a series of measures by which the Government aims to achieve effective and lasting reform.
The proposals in "Review of Heritage Protection: The Way Forward" include a number of short and long-term measures. The long-term measures will require primary legislation and so cannot be implemented immediately; work is ongoing towards the preparation of a White Paper with a provisional publication date of 2006. The key proposals for the White Paper are:
- New unified register, bringing together the systems of listed buildings, scheduled monuments, and registered parks, gardens and battlefields.
- Unifying the listed building and scheduled monument consent regimes.
- Introduction of optional partnership agreements between the owners of a site, local authorities, English Heritage and local communities to be employed as alternative proactive management regimes.
- Give English Heritage statutory responsibility for designating at a national level. This responsibility currently rests with the Secretary of State for DCMS.
- Introduce a statutory right of appeal to the Secretary of State on decisions to designate or not designate a site.
- New overarching statutory definition of historic assets.
The short-term measures will bring improvements to the heritage listing system. The first of these was introduced in April 2005, with the handing over of responsibility for processing listing applications to English Heritage. Forthcoming measures include, improved list entries for listed buildings; consultation with owners and local planning authorities on listing applications; new information packs for owners of newly listed buildings; a formal process for reviewing listing decisions.
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Public Consultation of the Criteria Used For Listing Buildings
On 25 July 2005 we launched a joint public consultation with the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister on revision of the criteria used when assessing a building for listing. This consultation has now closed and we will publish the results in 2006.
The aim of the revision is to provide clarity on the criteria applied when assessing a building for listing, to bring it in line with the criteria applied when scheduling monuments and registering parks, gardens and battlefields, which are very detailed and clear. The existing criteria is currently set out in paragraphs 6.10 – 6.16 of Planning Policy Guidance Note 15: Planning and the Historic Environment.
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Protecting our Marine Historic Environment
The consultation on the Protection of our Marine Historic Environment has ended and the analysis of responses has been published.
The Department for Culture, Media and Sport, the Welsh Assembly Government, the Scottish Executive and the Department of the Environment, Northern Ireland jointly published a consultation paper on the marine historic environment in March 2004. The paper set out the key issues and questions in relation to marine historic environment designation.
The proposals in this paper sought to provide:
- A positive approach to managing the marine historic environment, which will be transparent, inclusive, effective and sustainable and central to social, environmental and economic agendas at a local as well as national level.
- A legislative framework that protects the marine historic environment but enables appropriate management techniques to be applied and evolve.
This consultation followed on from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport's consultation paper "Protecting our historic environment: Making the system work better" (July 2003) and the Welsh Assembly Government's "Protection of Historical Assets in Wales" (September 2003).
The proposals outlined in this marine consultation paper sought close integration with reform of the land-based historic environment. However, the nature of the legal structure for the marine historic environment led to a consultation that covered the whole of the United Kingdom.
The consultation period was 26 March 2004 to 31 July 2004. We had a total of 122 respondents and the report on the analysis of the responses was published on 22 July 2005. As outlined in the report, we set up two working groups to take the responses forward. One of the groups focussed on salvage and reporting issues and one looked at issues surrounding designation and definitions. These working groups held their final meetings in March 2006 and are scheduled to report their recommendations to DCMS shortly. Membership of the groups can be viewed below.
Related information: Welsh Assembley Government's Consultation paper regarding the protection of historical assets in Wales (September 2003). Visit the Welsh Assembly website for more information.
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Ecclesiastical Exemption: The Way Forward Consultation Paper
The consultation period was 25 February to 31 May 2004. The ecclesiastical exemption way forward consultation report was published on 28 July 2005.
The consultation had set out proposals for changing the way in which the ecclesiastical exemption from listed buildings and conservation area controls operates in England.
The exemption presently applies to six denominations in England and Wales under the Ecclesiastical Exemption (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Order 1994. These denominations are the Church of England, the Church in Wales, the Roman Catholic Church, the Methodist Church, the United Reformed Church and the Baptist Union of Great Britain and the Baptist Union in Wales. The consultation paper proposes that the exemptions should continue operate in England under high-level management agreements entered into by individual denominations. The management agreements would be made with English Heritage, who would be given the statutory power both to validate denomination's systems of control and to monitor their operation of the exemption.
Welsh Assembley Government will be making separate arrangements for reviewing the exemption in Wales.
These documents are available online in Adobe Acrobat (.pdf) format.
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