Introduction of Enhanced Advisory Services by Historic England

English Heritage split into 2 organisations in April this year. English Heritage, now a self funding charity, assumed responsibility for the national collection of over 400 historic properties. The regulatory role of planning and heritage protection has passed to Historic England who are now the government’s statutory adviser on the historic environment.

Historic England has now announced this month their new package of enhanced advisory services. In exchange for payment of a fee, developers are promised speed, clarity and early engagement with Historic England on historic environment issues, with the aim of reducing risk on prospective development schemes.

The enhanced advisory services comprise:

• Extended pre-application advice;
• Fast track listing;
• Listing enhancement to provide clarity within the list description over the extent of statutory protection; and
• Listing screening of sites to ascertain the likelihood of any heritage assets that would warrant statutory listing.

The offer of extended pre-application advice in respect of planning applications, applications for listed building consent and scheduled monument consent, where Historic England would be a statutory consultee, is likely to be of most interest to developers. Historic England has sought to avoid the criticism of running a two tier planning advice system by offering the first 15 hours of pre-application advice free of charge. Promoters of major schemes that may impact on historic assets will also benefit from an extended service for which they will be charged. In return, Historic England guarantee an allocated lead officer who will be able to participate in early design review meetings and provide a continuity of advice prior to submission of an application.

The enhanced advisory service also extends to fast tracking of applications to list a building; schedule a monument; register a park, garden or battlefield; protect a wreck site; apply for a certificate of immunity from listing; and apply to amend or remove an entry from the National Heritage List for England.

Historic England are guaranteeing, in return for a fee, to halve the current time taken to process such applications and to make list recommendations to the Department of Culture Media and Sport within 12 weeks for straightforward cases.

Perhaps of greater benefit to developers/property owners will be the opportunity, through the listing enhancement service, to seek clarity within an agreed time frame, of the extent of statutory protection of a building. This will identify which structures are of special interest and may enable parts of buildings to be excluded from protection within an enhanced list description.

An additional listing screening service, completes the package of the enhanced advisory services on offer, although its benefit to developers may be limited to large regeneration schemes. Historic England are offering to carry out a survey and assess the likelihood of any heritage assets above ground meriting protection by listing. However, the risk of taking up such a service is that this may lead to statutory designation of assets.

Overall the package of enhanced advisory services now offered by Historic England is likely to be welcomed by developers and the costs absorbed in the development costs for the project. Whether it will reduce the risk of applications being refused, as Historic England claims, will only become clear over time.

Details of the likely fees to be charged for these enhanced advisory services are set out on the Historic England website https://historicengland.org.uk/.