Setting of a heritage asset: the planning definition

Setting is the surroundings in which a heritage asset is experienced. That is the definition in the National Planning Policy Framework glossary, and the three clauses that follow it do most of the work: the extent of setting is not fixed, it changes as the asset and its surroundings change, and elements within it can contribute positively, negatively or not at all to the significance of the asset.

None of which tells you where to draw a line on a plan. That is deliberate, and it is the source of most arguments about setting on planning applications.

What setting is, and what it is not

Setting is not curtilage. Curtilage is a legal concept that determines which structures are treated as part of a listed building for consent purposes, usually turning on physical layout, ownership and function at the time of listing. A building can stand well outside the curtilage of a listed building and firmly within its setting.

Setting is not a designated area either. Conservation areas, registered parks and world heritage sites have boundaries drawn on a map. Setting has no boundary until someone assesses it, and the assessment depends on the asset and on what is proposed.

Setting is also not the same as a view, though views are part of it. The point is worth making early in a heritage statement, because an objector who has established that a proposal is not visible from the front door of a listed farmhouse has not thereby established that the setting is unaffected.

Setting as more than what you can see

Historic England's advice on setting makes clear that the experience of an asset is not limited to sightlines. The factors that can contribute include the topography and the way the land falls, the historic relationship between an asset and the land it was built to serve, the pattern of routes and approaches, noise, smell and tranquillity, the sense of enclosure or of openness, and the way an asset is first glimpsed on arrival.

A mill without its leat, a church without its approach through the churchyard, a country house without the park it was sited to command: each loses something even where nothing is built in the direct view.

Tranquillity is the factor most often argued over, because it is hard to evidence and easy to assert. Where it does matter, as it does for an isolated barn conversion in open countryside or for a scheduled monument on a ridge, describe the current sound environment and what the proposal introduces rather than using the word on its own.

The practical consequence is that the assessment starts with why the asset is where it is. An eighteenth century toll house is explained by the road. A Victorian pumping station is explained by the river. Work out the relationship first, then ask what the proposal does to it.

Assessing the contribution setting makes

The staged approach in Historic England's guidance on the setting of heritage assets runs in five steps, and following its sequence is the easiest way to produce an assessment an officer can agree with.

1. Identify which heritage assets and which parts of their settings might be affected.
2. Assess the degree to which the setting and any relevant views contribute to the significance of the asset, or allow that significance to be appreciated.
3. Assess the effect of the proposal on that significance, whether harmful or beneficial.
4. Explore ways to avoid or reduce harm and to improve what is there.
5. Record the decision and the reasoning.

Step two is where weak statements fall over. The question is not whether the setting has changed since the asset was built, because almost every setting has. The question is what the current setting contributes to why the asset matters.

That contribution can be substantial, limited, neutral or negative. A 1970s car park within the setting of a medieval gatehouse contributes negatively, and a proposal that replaces it can improve the setting even while introducing new built form.

Assets outside the application site

The most commonly missed assets are the ones nobody owns a plan of. A grade II listed milepost 200 metres down the lane, a scheduled monument on the skyline, a registered park whose boundary runs behind a hedge.

Search the National Heritage List for England across a radius proportionate to the scheme, then check the local list of non-designated heritage assets, which sits with the council rather than with Historic England and is easy to overlook. Non-designated assets are still material, though the balancing exercise for them differs from the statutory test for designated ones.

For larger schemes, the setting assessment and the visual work overlap heavily, and it is usually worth running a Townscape and Visual Impact Assessment alongside the heritage work rather than after it, so that viewpoints are agreed once. Where buried archaeology is likely, an Archaeological Desk-Based Assessment answers a different question again and should not be folded into the setting analysis.

Change within a setting that causes no harm

Development within the setting of a heritage asset is not automatically harmful, and saying so plainly in a statement is more persuasive than pretending the proposal is invisible.

Harm arises where the proposal erodes the contribution the setting makes to significance, or the ability to appreciate that significance. Where the contribution is neutral, change can be neutral too. Where the contribution is negative, well-designed change can be beneficial.

The statutory duties still apply either way. Sections 66 and 72 of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 require special regard to the desirability of preserving a listed building and its setting, and special attention to preserving or enhancing the character or appearance of a conservation area. Courts have treated those duties as carrying considerable importance and weight, which is why the finding on harm drives the rest of the case. Our note on less than substantial harm and the heritage balance sets out what happens once harm is identified.

Recording the assessment for the application

National policy requires an applicant to describe the significance of any heritage asset affected, including any contribution made by its setting, to a level of detail proportionate to the asset's importance and no more than is sufficient to understand the impact.

Proportionate is the operative word. A single storey rear extension 300 metres from a listed church does not need a 60 page document, and producing one signals that nobody has thought about which asset actually matters.

The opposite failure is more common on small applications. A paragraph asserting that the proposal will have no impact on any heritage asset, with no identification of the assets and no evidence, gives the case officer nothing to agree with and often produces a request for further information that costs more time than a proper short statement would have.

What a Heritage Statement should contain, on any scale of scheme, is the identification of the assets, the evidence used, the assessment of what setting contributes, the effect of the proposal described in the language of the Framework, and the design measures taken in response. Photographs from the viewpoints that matter, taken in the season when the screening is thinnest, do more than paragraphs.

And name the person who carried out the assessment. Councils and conservation officers increasingly ask, and on a designated asset of high significance the answer changes how much weight the assessment carries.

This is general guidance, not legal advice. Check the position with your local planning authority or a qualified heritage professional before relying on it.

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