Heritage consultant competence for a statement of significance

Heritage consultant competence is not a licensing question. No statute reserves the writing of a statement of significance to a particular profession, unlike a bat survey or a biodiversity metric. What decides whether the document works is whether its author can read a building, use an archive and separate significance from impact, and whether a conservation officer will accept their judgement.

That makes selection harder rather than easier, because the marketplace includes people with a weekend's familiarity with the National Heritage List and people who have spent twenty years on Grade I fabric. The test set out below is the one to apply before you commission.

What the statement has to establish

The National Planning Policy Framework requires an applicant to describe the significance of any heritage assets affected, including any contribution made by their setting, with the level of detail proportionate to the asset's importance and no more than is sufficient to understand the potential impact. That single sentence does most of the work, and it contains the two things weak statements get wrong.

First, significance has to be described before impact is assessed. A document that leaps to saying the proposal causes less than substantial harm, without first setting out what is significant about the building and why, gives the decision-maker nothing to weigh. Second, the assessment has to cover setting, which is a separate exercise from the asset itself.

Behind the Framework sit statutory duties. Sections 16 and 66 of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 require special regard to the desirability of preserving a listed building, its setting and any features of special architectural or historic interest it possesses. Section 72 applies a parallel duty to the character and appearance of conservation areas. Those duties bind the authority, and the statement is what allows the authority to discharge them.

Qualifications and memberships worth asking about

There is no single badge, but there are recognised markers. Full membership of the Institute of Historic Building Conservation is the closest thing to a general conservation competence standard, awarded against defined areas of competence. On the architectural side, the RIBA conservation register distinguishes Specialist Conservation Architects, Conservation Architects and Conservation Registrants, and the Architects Accredited in Building Conservation register performs a similar function. RICS maintains building conservation accreditation for surveyors. Chartered membership of the RTPI with demonstrable heritage casework is common among heritage consultants who work mainly on planning applications rather than on fabric.

For archaeology the position is different and more formal. Membership of the Chartered Institute for Archaeologists at Practitioner, Associate or Member grade, and registration of the organisation, are what councils expect for archaeological work, and the CIfA standards and guidance documents are the benchmark against which the work is judged.

A caution about the word accredited. Several perfectly good heritage consultants hold none of these registrations and are respected by the conservation officers they deal with. Use the registrations as a filter, then look at the work.

Experience with the asset type

This is the discriminator that matters most and the one clients rarely test. Reading a medieval parish church, a 1930s cinema, a Georgian terrace, a textile mill and a post-war concrete civic building are different skills, drawing on different literature and different construction histories.

Ask for three previous Heritage Statement examples on the same asset type and grade, with the application references, so you can read the officer's report and see how the assessment was received. Ask whether any of the three went to appeal and what the inspector said about the heritage evidence. Ask who will actually write your statement, because the person who wins the work is not always the person who does it.

Grade matters too. Grade I and Grade II* proposals normally involve Historic England as a statutory consultee, and an author who has not corresponded with Historic England before will struggle with the register of that conversation.

Archive and documentary research skills

The single most common weakness in a heritage statement is that its historical section is a paraphrase of the list entry. The National Heritage List for England description exists to identify the asset, not to explain its significance, and it is frequently brief, occasionally wrong and never exhaustive. A statement built on it alone tells the officer nothing they did not already have.

Real research uses the Historic Environment Record held by the county or unitary authority, the county record office, successive editions of Ordnance Survey mapping, tithe and enclosure maps, sale particulars, deeds, trade directories, census returns and the Historic England Archive. On a building of any complexity it also uses the fabric itself: phasing observed on site, blocked openings, changes in brick bond, roof carpentry, and paint and plaster evidence.

Historic England's Advice Note 12 sets out how to analyse significance using the heritage values from its Conservation Principles, covering evidential, historical, aesthetic and communal value. A competent author will attribute values explicitly and say what evidence supports each attribution. Ask to see a sample where they have done that, rather than a sample where the values are listed as headings and filled with adjectives.

Where an archaeologist is needed instead

Three situations call for a different specialist.

1. Below-ground archaeology. Where the site sits in an Archaeological Priority Area, near a scheduled monument or on land with recorded finds, the council will ask for an Archaeological Desk-Based Assessment prepared to CIfA standards, and that is a job for an archaeologist rather than a buildings specialist.
2. Recording as mitigation. Where permission will be granted on condition that the building is recorded before alteration or demolition, Historic Building Recording to Historic England Levels 1 to 4 is specified, and the level determines the drawing, photographic and documentary output required. Buildings archaeologists do this work.
3. Scheduled monument consent. That is a separate consent from the Secretary of State, outside the planning system, and it needs someone who has handled the process.

Plenty of practices cover both buildings and archaeology. The point is to check which discipline is doing which part, and to see that split reflected in the fee proposal.

Reviewing the significance assessment

When the draft arrives, work through it with a fixed checklist rather than reading for tone.

Two failure patterns recur. A statement that describes significance beautifully and then says almost nothing about impact, which leaves the officer to do the assessment. And a statement that concludes no harm arises when the drawings clearly show the loss of historic fabric, which destroys the author's credibility on everything else in the document. Where you are unsure whether the author's qualifications match the task, the general test of what competent person means in planning legislation is a useful frame.

Briefing for a listed building application

Write the brief before the fee is agreed. It should name the assets, state the grade, list the consents sought including listed building consent, and set the deliverables: the statement itself, a phasing plan, a schedule of works cross-referenced to the drawings, and any photographic record. Say who attends the pre-application meeting and who corresponds with the conservation officer, because divided responsibility there produces contradictory positions on the file.

Give the consultant the drawings early and in a form they can mark up. A heritage author who sees the scheme only when it is fixed can do nothing except describe harm, and the value of good heritage advice lies in changing the design while change still costs little. PlanScope can draft a heritage statement structured to policy for the author to develop and verify, and reviewers who can check and sign off a draft are listed in the professional directory.

Enter your postcode on PlanScope to see which heritage documents your site is likely to need.

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. For specialist technical reports, qualified professional input may be required.