HERITAGE PLANNING

• There is a need to know the past: a psychological need for a reference-point, although how we 'know' the past varies from personal experience .

• We thus display a marked propensity for changing the past to suit our own changing requirements. Relics can be adapted, added to, copied and 'interpreted', all of which tend to idealize the past.

HERITAGE PLANNING

• The 'originality' debate, which is often raised in the context of tourism and its consequences for the built heritage, can thus be seen as largely irrelevant to the concept of heritage planning (Ashworth,

1991; Newby, 1994).

HERITAGE PLANNING

• Preservation involves the retention, in largely unchanged form, of sites or objects of major cultural significance. Items falling into this category are frequently of national, or perhaps regional, significance.

HERITAGE PLANNING

• Conservation encompasses the idea that some form of restoration should be undertaken to bring old buildings and sites into suitable modern use .

• Exploitation recognizes the value of heritage sites, particularly for tourism and recreation, and encompasses the development of existing sites and new sites.

HERITAGE PLANNING

Agents of heritage planning:

• first, those directly involved in changes in that they initiate, design or implement development;

• secondly, those exercising external, less direct influence, mainly through the statutory system of development control.

HERITAGE PLANNING

Direct agents of change

These agents form a chain, or perhaps more correctly a web, of decision making which begins with the initiator, who makes the initial decision to begin the process of change .

• The initiator of a change and the architect designing it have probably the most direct influence on the townscape .

• Specialized contractors and consultants are also important.

HERITAGE PLANNING

Indirect agents

• Professionally qualified local authority planning officers .

• Planning Committee of the local authority, which is composed of elected public representatives, amongst whom aesthetic or technical knowledge or training is rare.

HERITAGE PLANNING

• These committees discuss the formal recommendation of the chief professional planning officer on each application. It is therefore the professional planners who determine, to a large extent, the nature and detail of the information upon which the committee acts

HERITAGE PLANNING

• Nevertheless, the committee makes the final decision. Although frequently accepting the officers' recommendations, committees may act in a variety of ways, suggesting that other pressures have acted upon them

HERITAGE PLANNING

Another indirect agent is the general public:

• Local amenity societies, community action groups and other pressure groups possessing considerable local knowledge and some professional expertise, they may be able to present the public's viewpoint with force and eloquence.

HERITAGE PLANNING

• The concept of conservation is now an accepted part of urban planning in most developed countries. This is a reflection of the widespread interest in the past and ways in which it is viewed, used and changed (Lowenthal, 1985) .

• Conservation has had, and will continue to have, a significant effect upon urban form, which can clearly be seen in all kinds of urban landscapes.

HERITAGE PLANNING

It must also be an area:

• whose character it is desirable to preserve;

• whose character it is desirable to enhance;

• whose appearance it is desirable to preserve;

• whose appearance it is desirable to enhance; or, again, presumably any combination of these. (Mynors, 1984, p. 146)

HERITAGE PLANNING

All listed buildings must possess 'special' interest:

• ie attention is paid to special value within certain building types, either for architectural or planning reasons, or as illustrating aspects of social or economic history;

• to technological innovations,

• to association with historic characters or events, or

• their group value, especially as models of town planning (squares, terraces or model villages).