Heritage Impact Assessments

We prepare heritage impact assessments that are required to accompany planning applications that involve work to a listed building, a development in a conservation area or those that may affect the setting of a protected building, site or area.  The main aim is to establish how any proposed development may affect the historic significance or character of what is referred to as the heritage asset

An assessment can be prepared when first considering changes or alterations to an historic building or other heritage asset so that the designers can fully understand what they are working with and so take account of this within their proposals.  This is recommended by guidelines that form the background to the Government’s planning policy to ensure that damage to our built heritage is limited.

The impact that the proposed development will have on the heritage asset is considered and discussed in a written report that usually contains a set of building / site plans that are annotated to show the broad phasing of the site’s history.  Each report will explain the extent, if any, how the proposal might affect the historic character and significance of the site being reviewed.  As a minimum, each assessment we produce will consider:

• The development of a building or structure as a whole, including its construction, plan form, and the dating of the fabric;
• We develop a chronology to show when it was built and how the building has changed over time through to the present day;
• The level of impact on the historic significance or character resulting from the proposal.

Each assessment is written in a narrative form to show clearly what we have looked at and explain what we understand about the building or site in as plain non-technical English as possible with any necessary technical terms clarified.  Similarly, the impact on how any historic significance and character will be given in a clear manner