Department for Culture Media and Sport
heritage protection review
In July 2003 the Government published a consultation paper suggesting changes to the heritage protection system. "Protecting our historic environment" set out proposals for improving the system for protecting buildings, above and below ground archaeology and other land-based heritage assets.
Following the consultation on these proposals, the Government published “Review of Heritage Protection: The Way Forward” which proposed reforms to the ways in which we protect our historic environment. Following this publication, DCMS and English Heritage introduced a number measures that were identified as not requiring legislation. These include:
- Transferring responsibility for processing listing applications to English Heritage
- introducing improved list entries for listed buildings
- introducing 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.
Making the Marine System Work Better
In association with the Welsh Assembly Government, the Scottish Executive and the Department of the Environment (Northern Ireland), we jointly published
Protecting our Marine Historic Environment: Making the system work better (PDF 892kb) a consultation paper, in March 2004.
The consultation period ended in July 2004. We had a total of 122 respondents.
Protecting our Marine Historic Environment: Analysis of Responses was published in July 2005.
We then set up two working groups:
The aim of the groups was to identify possible changes to the current system. These groups held their final meetings in March 2006 and reported their recommendations to DCMS, which were then fed into the ‘White Paper, Heritage Protection for the 21st Century’.
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Heritage Protection for the 21st Century White Paper: An analysis of consultation responses
The consultation on the 'White Paper, Heritage Protection for the 21st Century' closed on 1 June 2007, we received approximately 340 responses from a range of stakeholders and members of the public. The Welsh Assembly Government received approximately 50 responses commenting on the proposals in relation to Wales. These responses consisted of answers to the three specific consultation questions, and a wide range of comments on different aspects of the White Paper policy.
All of the answers to the questions, as well as the most mentioned other issues raised, have been summarised in the document, 'Heritage Protection for the 21st Century: An analysis of consultation responses', publised on 29 November 2007
The summary of the Welsh consultation responses will be available on the Cadw’s website within the next couple of days.
As a result of the consultation we have made the following policy proposals:
- We will merge conservation area consent with planning permission and will amend the Demolition Direction and general Permitted Development Order to restore pre-Shimizu levels of protection.
- We will produce statutory guidance promoting pre-application assessment for major developments.
- We will expand Certificates of Immunity in order that they can be applied for at any time and can cover entire sites.
These policy proposals, along with the proposals in the White Paper, will be included in the draft Heritage Protection Bill, which we intend to publish for pre-legislative scrutiny in the 2007/08 Session. .
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Draft Heritage Protection Bill
As announced in the background briefing to the Queen's speech on 6 November 2007, a draft Heritage Protection Bill will be published in the 2007-2008 Parliamentary session.
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