Planning matters
Channel: Recording Archaeology
Date: 03/08/2015

Tim Howard, CIfA

The Town and Country Planning regime provides the only effective management and protection for the vast majority of the historic environment which is undesignated and includes many nationally important sites. 

This paper considers how nationally important undesignated sites are considered and protected in the planning system, looking, in particular, at
• the principles which allow such assets to be considered in the planning process including the continuing development of archaeological significance as a material consideration
• the mechanisms available in that process to manage and protect such sites and to advance understanding of their significance. These include local plan policies, local lists, EIA, planning conditions and obligations and Article 4 and Article 7 Directions
• the shortcomings in those mechanisms and the continuing threat to undesignated assets, for instance, from the continuing desire to streamline the planning process (as illustrated by the remorseless extension of permitted development rights) combined with an enervating lack of resource
• the scope for improvements in the system. Do we need new tools such as archaeological conservation areas or a new approach to the use of what we already have?