Grade I and II star cases and the notification duty

The Grade I listed building consent process differs from a Grade II application in one structural respect: the local planning authority cannot simply decide it. Under the ministerial direction governing the handling of heritage applications, authorities must notify Historic England of applications for works to Grade I and Grade II* buildings, must notify the national amenity societies where demolition is involved, and in defined cases must refer an application they propose to grant to the Secretary of State before issuing a decision.

That adds weeks rather than days, and it adds a second and third audience for the documents. Write the submission for Historic England and for the societies as well as the case officer, and the process behaves very differently.

Which cases must be notified

Three separate notification duties operate, and they overlap rather than nesting.

Historic England must be notified of applications for listed building consent involving works to a Grade I or Grade II* building, and of applications involving the demolition of a Grade II building or a substantial part of one. It is also a statutory consultee on planning applications for development likely to affect the setting of a Grade I or II* asset, under the consultation schedule to the Town and Country Planning (Development Management Procedure) (England) Order 2015.

The national amenity societies must be notified of any application for listed building consent that involves demolition, in whole or in part, at any grade. Partial demolition is the trigger most often overlooked, because removing an internal wall or a chimney breast is demolition in part.

Referral to the Secretary of State arises where the authority is minded to grant consent in specified categories of case, which include certain works to the higher grades. The referral is not an appeal and not a call-in, but until it is resolved the authority cannot issue the decision.

Historic England's role in each grade

The distinction by grade is about whether the advice is mandatory to seek rather than about how much weight it carries.

Historic England's response will usually either raise no objection, offer advice with recommended conditions, or object with reasons. An objection does not bind the authority, but an authority that grants consent against an objection has to explain itself, and the decision becomes considerably more vulnerable on challenge.

Its pre-application advice service is charged and, on a complex high grade scheme, worth the fee. The advice arrives before the design is fixed, which is the only point at which it can change the outcome without a redesign fee.

The national amenity societies and their remit

Six societies hold the statutory notification right, and each has a period focus: the Ancient Monuments Society, the Council for British Archaeology, the Georgian Group, the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings, the Victorian Society and the Twentieth Century Society. The Gardens Trust holds an equivalent position for registered parks and gardens.

They are small organisations with limited casework capacity, which has two consequences. Most applications draw no comment. The ones that do draw comment tend to attract detailed, well-evidenced objections from someone who knows the building type better than anyone else in the process.

Engaging early is usually productive. A society that has seen the scheme before submission and had one detail changed will often write a neutral or qualified response rather than an objection. A society that first encounters the scheme through a statutory notification, with a design it considers damaging, will write to the officer and frequently to the members.

Timescales added by notification

Build the extra time into the programme at the outset.

1. Validation, then the standard 21-day publicity and consultation period.
2. Historic England's response, normally within 21 days of notification, sometimes extended by agreement.
3. Amenity society responses within the same consultation window, though late representations are commonly accepted.
4. Officer report and, where the authority is minded to grant in a referable case, referral to the Secretary of State.
5. Resolution of the referral before the decision notice can issue.

A straightforward Grade II* application can run to four or five months from submission. Assuming eight weeks and programming a contractor accordingly is the commonest scheduling error on these projects.

Weight given to consultee advice

Section 16 of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 requires the decision-maker to have special regard to the desirability of preserving the building, its setting and any features of special architectural or historic interest it possesses, and section 66 applies the same duty to planning applications affecting a listed building or its setting. The courts have held that this duty requires considerable importance and weight to be given to any harm, and that it is not a simple balancing exercise. Our note on what sections 66 and 72 require of decisions sets out how that plays through a report.

National policy adds a gradient. Great weight attaches to the conservation of a designated heritage asset, and the more important the asset, the greater that weight, with substantial harm to a Grade I or Grade II* building acceptable only in wholly exceptional circumstances. Read the current edition of the Framework rather than an older copy, because the policy has been renumbered and recoded more than once.

Against that, consultee advice is a material consideration and not a veto. Where Historic England objects and the officer recommends approval, the report has to engage with the objection point by point, and an applicant who has already supplied that analysis makes the officer's task easier.

Pre-application engagement value

On a high grade building the pre-application stage is where the application is won. Three things are worth doing.

Get the significance right first. A statement of heritage significance that identifies what matters about the building, room by room and element by element, with a documentary and physical analysis behind it, is the foundation for everything else. A Heritage Statement built on that analysis is a different document from one that describes the building and then asserts no harm.

Test two or three options rather than presenting one. Higher grade cases turn on whether a less harmful alternative exists, and showing the alternatives you rejected, with reasons, answers that question before it is asked.

Commission the recording early. Where fabric will be lost, a historic building recording to the appropriate level, prepared by a suitably qualified author with professional review, both discharges a likely condition and demonstrates seriousness. Our note on recording a building before demolition or conversion covers the levels.

Managing a high grade application

The submission for a Grade I or II* case should read as a single argument rather than a bundle of documents. What that looks like in practice:

• A significance assessment with a plan-based gradation of significance across the building
• A design and access statement that traces each intervention back to a need and shows the options considered
• A schedule of works, item by item, with the justification and the effect on significance for each
• Structural, services and condition evidence where the case relies on the building's condition
• A recording proposal and a proposed methodology for any archaeology
• Draft conditions you would accept, offered rather than awaited

Then manage the consultees actively. Send the documents to Historic England and the relevant society when the application is submitted rather than waiting for the authority to notify them, and offer a site visit. Officers rarely object to that and it shortens the process.

One honest caveat. Even a well-prepared high grade application can fail on a single element that a specialist consultee considers unacceptable, and the sensible approach is to identify that element in advance and be ready to drop it. Internal alterations are usually where the risk sits, as our note on internal alterations that harm significance explains.

This is general guidance, not legal advice; check the position with your local planning authority or a qualified professional before relying on it. PlanScope provides AI-assisted draft reports for planning applications. Reports should be reviewed before submission. We do not guarantee planning approval.