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Historic Gardens 2010
BCD Special Report
impact of change, other ‘tools’ within the
planning system must therefore be deployed,
such as the listing of built structures
and the scheduling of other features.
PPS5: NEW GOVERNMENT POLICY
Although the labour government’s proposals for
a new heritage protection act are unlikely to be
fulfilled by the new coalition, one key element
of their proposals was achieved in March 2010,
just before the election: PPS5 was issued.
Planning Policy Statement 5: Conservation
of the Historic Environment
, to give it its full
title, replaced two former policy documents,
PPGs 15 (
Planning and the Historic Environment
)
and 16 (
Archaeology and Planning
), effectively
unifying control over all ‘heritage assets’. Listed
buildings and scheduled monuments are
now ‘designated heritage assets’, as are world
heritage sites, protected wreck sites, registered
parks and gardens, registered battlefields
and conservation areas. PPS5 thus provides
the new unified framework within which
planning applications affecting nationally
designated landscapes must be determined.
The PPS makes several radical departures
from previous guidance, the first being its
emphasis on understanding the ‘significance’
of the heritage asset, which it defines as; ‘The
value of a heritage asset to this and future
generations because of its heritage interest. That
interest may be archaeological, architectural,
artistic or historic’. This concept thus neatly
embraces all historic assets, including parks
and gardens, and ties in the terminology of
its parent act, the
Planning (Listed Buildings
and Conservation Areas) Act 1990
, which refers
to ‘special architectural or historic interest’.
Furthermore, some degree of
protection is extended to all heritage
assets, whether designated or not:
In considering the impact of a proposal on any
heritage asset, local planning authorities should
take into account the particular nature of the
significance of the heritage asset and the value that
it holds for this and future generations. (HE7.4)
If there is any doubt of the implications
of this for a planning application
affecting a historic park or garden
that is not included on the statutory
register, Policy HE8 is even clearer:
The effect of an application on the significance
of such [an undesignated] heritage asset
or its setting is a material consideration in
determining the application. (HE8.1)
This does not mean that the
Register of
Parks and Gardens
is now redundant, as the
much stronger wording used in relation to
designated assets in policy HE9 makes clear:
There should be a presumption in favour of the
conservation of designated heritage assets and
the more significant the designated heritage
asset, the greater the presumption in favour of
its conservation should be. … Substantial harm
to or loss of a grade II listed building, park
or garden should be exceptional. Substantial
harm to or loss of designated heritage assets of
the highest significance, including scheduled
monuments, 14 protected wreck sites, battlefields,
grade I and II* listed buildings and grade I and
II* registered parks and gardens, World Heritage
Sites, should be wholly exceptional. (HE9.1)
Stoke Poges Gardens of Remembrance, Buckinghamshire – a 1930s commemorative landscape included on the Register at
Grade I (Photo: Jonathan Lovie)
The Boringdon Arch near Plymouth is a Grade II* listed structure designed by Robert Adam, standing above a scheduled
ancient monument, and is integrally linked to the historic and aesthetic development of the adjacent Grade II* designed
landscape at Saltram. (Photo: Jonathan Lovie)
The latter includes a diverse selection of
landscape types, ranging from country
house gardens to sites such as the garden
developed by the sculptor, Dame Barbara
Hepworth, at her studio in St Ives, Cornwall.
The
Register of Parks and Gardens
forms one of the suite of national
designations applied to the historic
environment, alongside listing for
buildings, scheduling for archaeology,
and the
Register of Historic Battlefields
.
Under the programme of Heritage
Protection Reform introduced by the
labour government all historic environment
designations are being brought together
within the new National Register. This move
will help to emphasise the way in which the
different elements of the historic environment
are frequently inextricably linked: for
example, a registered landscape may form the
designed setting of a listed country house, and
may contain a scheduled feature which was
incorporated into the landscape design; and
the whole might form part of the setting of an
historic battlefield. The historic development,
interest and therefore significance of each
one of these features is thus clearly related,
and to some extent dependent upon,
the significance of the other features. It
therefore follows that a development which
impacts adversely on one element of the
historic environment may have an impact
on the overall significance of that site.
These reforms do not affect the widely
varying levels of protection which apply
to the different types of heritage asset.
Thus scheduled monuments continue
to enjoy the greatest degree of statutory
protections, closely followed by listed
buildings. Registered designed landscapes,
however, remain without any additional
statutory control or protection, as before.
In order to seek to protect important
designed landscapes from the adverse