Heritage consultants: what to look for before instructing

A heritage statement stands or falls on one thing: whether it assesses the significance of the asset properly before it discusses the proposal. Historic England's advice on preparing statements of heritage significance sets out what that assessment should cover, and the difference between a consultant who works to it and one who does not is visible in the first two pages.

There is no licence to practise heritage consultancy. Nobody is legally barred from writing a heritage statement, which puts the burden on you to check competence before instructing rather than after the refusal.

What a statement of significance has to do

The statutory framework explains why the assessment comes first. Where a listed building is affected, the decision maker must have special regard to the desirability of preserving the building, its setting and any features of special architectural or historic interest. In a conservation area, the duty is to pay special attention to preserving or enhancing character and appearance. National policy then requires an applicant to describe the significance of any heritage asset affected, including any contribution made by its setting, with the level of detail proportionate to the asset's importance and no more than is sufficient to understand the potential impact.

So a usable statement does four things in order.

1. Identifies the asset or assets affected, designated and non-designated, including those whose setting is affected.
2. Assesses significance by reference to the interests that make the asset important, drawing on documentary research, map regression and inspection of the fabric.
3. Explains how the proposal would affect that significance, identifying harm and benefit specifically rather than in general terms.
4. Places the effect within the policy tests, distinguishing substantial harm from less than substantial harm and setting out the public benefits relied on.

A document that describes the building, then describes the proposal, then asserts that there is no harm has skipped the assessment. Officers see it several times a week.

Accreditation routes and what each one covers

Competence here is demonstrated by a combination of membership, accreditation and track record, because no single badge covers the whole field.

Membership of the relevant professional institute for historic environment practice indicates assessed competence in historic environment work, with grades reflecting experience. Conservation accreditation schemes run by the architectural and surveying institutes indicate assessed competence in conservation work by architects and surveyors. Archaeological practice has its own institute and its own registered organisations scheme, which is the one that matters when the question is below ground rather than above it.

For a householder in a conservation area, any of these is a reasonable signal. What none of them tells you is whether the person has worked on your kind of building.

Beware two things. A general planning consultancy that produces heritage statements as a sideline may be excellent or may be templating, and the way to tell is to read two recent examples. And a firm with an impressive institutional membership at partner level may put your job with someone much more junior, which is fine if the partner reviews it and a problem if nobody does.

Experience with the asset type

This matters more than the accreditation. Assessing a Grade II farmhouse with a cruck frame, a Victorian terrace in a conservation area, a 1960s school and a scheduled monument are four different jobs.

Ask what comparable work the person has done in the last two years. Ask specifically about the asset type, the grade, and the type of intervention you are proposing. An extension to a listed building, the insertion of a rooflight, the removal of an internal wall, the installation of heating and a change of use each raise different questions, and a consultant who has done yours before will ask sharper questions at the first meeting.

Local knowledge is worth something too, though less than people think. Someone who has worked repeatedly in the authority will know the conservation officer's concerns and the local plan policies. That is useful. It is not a substitute for understanding the building.

Working with the conservation officer

The good consultants engage the conservation officer early, and the way they do it is informative.

A consultant who proposes a pre-application meeting, arrives with a draft significance assessment rather than a finished scheme, and asks open questions about what the officer considers important is doing the job properly. One who arrives with a completed design and asks for approval in principle is not.

Ask your prospective consultant how they would approach the conservation officer on your scheme, and listen for whether the answer is about the building or about persuasion.

Where the authority has published a conservation area appraisal or a management plan, expect the statement to engage with it directly, quoting the relevant passages about the character of your part of the area. A statement that does not mention the appraisal at all suggests nobody read it.

Questions to ask before instructing

Six questions separate a good appointment from a bad one.

• What comparable buildings and interventions have you assessed recently, and may I see two examples of your statements?
• Who will actually write it, what is their experience, and who reviews it?
• What research will you do beyond the list entry, and will you visit the building?
• What will you do if your assessment concludes the proposal causes more harm than we expect?
• What is included in the fee, and what is charged extra: archive research, additional visits, responses to consultee comments, amendments after a site meeting?
• What is your programme, and does it fit with the design timetable?

The fourth question is the important one. A consultant who will tell you the scheme causes harm is worth considerably more than one who will write whatever the drawing shows, because the officer will spot the second kind and the whole document then loses credibility. Our note on independence and conflicts of interest covers where that line sits.

Set the scope in writing. A brief that states the asset, the proposal, the policy tests to be addressed and the deliverable produces a usable report, as our note on writing a brief for a specialist report explains.

Reviewing the statement before it goes in

Read it yourself before submission, and check for these things.

Does it identify every affected asset, including neighbouring listed buildings whose setting your works touch? Does the significance section stand on its own, so that someone who had never seen the building could understand what matters about it and why? Is the evidence there, with sources cited, rather than assertion? Does it name the harm, if any, and its level? Does it engage with the actual policies in the adopted plan rather than only with national policy?

Check the factual details too. The list entry number and grade. The name and date of the conservation area. Construction dates and phases, which should come from evidence rather than from an estate agent's particulars. Errors of this kind undermine the rest.

If you inherited the statement with the property or from a previous adviser, have it reviewed rather than resubmitting it unchecked. A Heritage Statement prepared with AI assistance can carry the structure, the policy framework and the checklist of what to cover, and the assessment of significance still needs someone who has looked at the building.

Where a specialist recording brief is needed

Sometimes the heritage consultant is not the whole answer.

Where fabric will be lost, the authority may require historic building recording to a specified level before works begin, which is a distinct discipline with its own standards and its own practitioners. Where ground disturbance is proposed in a sensitive area, archaeological work is a separate appointment again, and our note on checking an archaeological contractor covers what to verify.

Ask early which of these your scheme is likely to trigger, because a recording condition discovered at decision stage delays a start on site. The professional directory is one route to a reviewer for a draft you already hold.

This is general guidance, not legal advice. Listed building consent requirements and local heritage policy need checking with your local planning authority or a qualified professional before you rely on anything here. PlanScope provides AI-assisted draft reports for planning applications. Reports should be reviewed before submission. We do not guarantee planning approval.

Browse all 66 PlanScope report types to see which heritage documents your project is likely to need.