Historic paving, setts and kerbs in conservation areas

Historic paving in a conservation area is usually highway land, and that single fact explains why so many campaigns to save it get nowhere. Works for the maintenance, improvement or other alteration of a road, carried out by a highway authority within the boundaries of the road, are excluded from the definition of development by section 55 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. No development means no planning application, no consultation, no committee and no appeal.

So the levers are elsewhere. They exist, and they work, and they are almost all things you have to pull before the machinery arrives rather than after.

What survives and why it matters

Granite setts, York stone flags, whin kerbs, stone channels, cobbled back lanes, granite crossings laid for horses. In most historic towns what remains is fragmentary, surviving in back streets, service yards and under later tarmac.

These surfaces record how a place worked. Sett paving was laid for grip on gradients where horses pulled loads. Wide stone flags with deep kerbs record the point at which a street became a pavement. Channels and gullies record drainage before combined sewers. A crossing of smooth granite slabs across a setted carriageway records a pedestrian route that predates the road markings.

They also weather in a way that modern materials do not. A worn sett is more legible than a new one and a patched asphalt repair in a setted street is visible for decades.

Who owns and maintains the surface

On a publicly maintainable highway the surface is vested in the highway authority, with the subsoil beneath usually remaining with the adjoining owner. The highway authority is the county council or the unitary authority, which in a two tier area is not the council that handles planning.

That division is the first thing to establish, because it determines who you are talking to. A conservation officer in a district council has no power over the surface of a street, however strongly they feel about it. The decision sits with a highways asset management team, working to a maintenance programme and a materials policy.

Private streets are different. Where a street is not publicly maintainable, responsibility sits with the frontagers, and works can be a private matter entirely. Check the list of streets the authority maintains at public expense before assuming.

Highway works and the absence of consent

Understanding the exclusion in section 55 properly is what makes a concern effective rather than merely loud.

The exclusion covers maintenance, improvement and other alteration of a road, by a highway authority, on land within the boundaries of the road. Each limb is doing work. A scheme that goes beyond the boundaries of the road, or that is carried out by someone other than the highway authority, or that involves new structures rather than alteration of the road, may well need permission.

The statutory heritage duties still bite where a designated asset is involved, and the statutory heritage duties on decision makers apply whenever a planning or consent function is exercised. They simply do not attach to a maintenance decision.

Reinstatement standards after utility works

This is where most historic surface loss actually happens, a trench at a time.

An undertaker executing street works has a statutory duty to reinstate, and the published reinstatement specification requires modular and special surface materials to be reinstated in kind rather than patched in bituminous material. Street authorities keep records of streets with special surface materials precisely so that undertakers know what a street requires before they open it.

Two practical consequences. If your street is not on that record, an undertaker has no reason to reinstate in setts, and the additional cost of doing so may not be recoverable. If it is, the specification applies and poor reinstatement can be challenged.

So the single most useful thing a civic society can do is get streets recorded. Ask the street authority which streets in the conservation area are recorded as having special surfaces, offer a surveyed list of those that should be, and put it in writing. That work takes an afternoon with a camera and it protects surfaces for years.

Listing and scheduling of surfaces

Designation does reach street surfaces, and it is used less often than it could be.

Street surfaces, setts, kerbs, stone stairs, bollards, railings, coal-hole covers and cast iron street furniture can be listed in their own right. Surfaces within the curtilage of a listed building are caught by that building's listing. And some historic surfaces lie within scheduled monuments, particularly in and around castles, town walls and industrial sites.

Where a surface is designated, consent is required for works affecting it, and the exclusion in section 55 does not remove that requirement. A highway authority resurfacing a listed sett carriageway without listed building consent is in the same position as anyone else.

Applications to add an item to the list are made to the national heritage body, and a well evidenced application for a surviving setted street with documented history is not a hopeless proposition. Where a designated surface is decaying through neglect rather than through works, the tools are different again, and repairs notices and urgent works are the relevant route.

Streetscape schemes and the design process

Larger streetscape schemes are the opportunity rather than the threat, because they come with a design process, funding and usually some form of consultation even where none is legally required.

Engage at the option stage. Once a scheme has a materials palette signed off by a funder, changing it is a procurement problem. Ask three questions early. What happens to the existing historic material, and will it be lifted, cleaned and relaid rather than removed. What is the maintenance commitment for the finished surface. And who is specifying the detailing at junctions, crossings and around trees, because that is where historic paving is usually lost.

As an illustrative example, a scheme repaving a market square might retain the setts across the whole space, or retain them in the carriageway and replace the footway in a modern flag, or lift and relay a sample area with the rest in concrete setts. All three can be presented as retaining the historic surface. Only the first one does.

Where a scheme involves excavation in a historic core, an Archaeological Desk-Based Assessment is often the document that identifies what lies beneath, and the surface itself may be the uppermost archaeological layer.

How to raise a concern effectively

Six steps, in order.

1. Identify the highway authority, and the asset team responsible for the street.
2. Ask in writing whether the street is recorded as having special surface materials, and request the record.
3. Ask whether any part of the surface, kerbs or street furniture is listed or scheduled.
4. Ask for the authority's streetscape or historic streets policy, if it has one, and the maintenance programme for the street.
5. Copy the conservation officer, who has no power here but does have influence and institutional memory.
6. Photograph and record what exists, with dates and locations, and share it with the authority.

Do the recording whether or not anything is threatened. A dated photographic survey of surviving surfaces is the evidence any later argument will rest on, and nobody else is compiling it.

Where a private development affects a historic surface, that is a planning matter and the usual routes apply, including a Heritage Statement explaining the effect on the character of the area. PlanScope can draft that kind of statement, and a draft should be reviewed before submission.

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.