Heritage Protection Reform
In March 2007, the Government published a White Paper called Heritage Protection for the 21st Century. This White Paper proposes major changes to the current, secular, system of heritage protection.
Its three core aims are: to develop a unified approach to the historic environment, to maximise opportunities for inclusion and involvement, and to support sustainable communities by putting the historic environment at the heart of an effective planning system.
The proposed unified legislative framework will streamline the various statutory controls. At present, the heritage protection system in England and Wales has separate systems for dealing with different aspects of the historic environment, such as listing and scheduling, and a range of professionals to operate these systems. The proposed new system will replace these with a single, unified designation and consent scheme for all the various types of heritage, such as buildings, ancient monuments, parks and gardens, and battlefields. A new Register of Historic Buildings and Sites of England and Wales will replace the current lists and schedules.
The proposed new processes for designation will be open to wider consultation and are intended to be quicker and simpler. Designation will continue to be made on the basis of special historic, architectural or archaeological interest.
Voluntary Heritage Partnership Agreements, with statutory force, are proposed for complex sites to help owners and managers by reducing the number of unnecessary, parallel or recurring consent applications. Pilots for such Agreements are in progress for two Church of England cathedrals and one diocese. The proposed Agreements could potentially make savings in time, money and resources which will enable churches and cathedrals to concentrate energy on their mission to the community.
Churches and places of worship will continue to be designated for their historic, architectural or archaeological interest and the ‘Ecclesiastical Exemption' will continue for those denominations which already have it. Register entries relating to ecclesiastical assets in use as places of worship, with their attached churchyards and any separately designated tombs, will be exempt from the new consent procedure, Historic Asset Consent. This suggests that designated buildings or structures within churchyards will only be subject to the faculty jurisdiction and no longer to dual control. This would be a major simplification of the present system.
Other assets owned by church bodies but not in ecclesiastical use, such as parsonages, offices, will not be exempt; nor will the exemption be extended to other denominations which are currently not exempt.
Ecclesiastical buildings will remain fully subject to planning control. In advance of the new legislation, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) will work with the exempted denominations to agree the operation of the Exemption under the new system, on the understanding that their own systems of control should provide levels of consultation and engagement similar to the proposed new secular systems.
Based on the White Paper, the draft Heritage Protection Bill was published in April 2008. It is understood that, subject to the Parliamentary process, new legislation might come into force in 2010.
November 2007 & April 2008
Further Information
The full text of both the draft Bill and the White Paper can be found on the website of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.
