Historic England has published new Good Practice Advice on planning and the historic environment. Prepared by various organisations represented on the Historic Environment Forum, including the Chartered Institute for Archaeologists and Historic England, the advice underpins the Government’s Planning Practice Guidance which in turn expands upon the core policy principles of the National Planning Policy Framework.
Three documents on the planning advice pages of Historic England’s website cover
• local plans
• decision taking in the planning process
• and setting.
In terms of archaeology there is much to celebrate. Peter Hinton, CIfA’s Chief Executive, highlighted the achievements:
This guidance represents a considerable improvement on the advice in PPG16 and the PPS5 practice guide (now to be withdrawn). GPA2 makes a robust case for the need for local authorities to have access to HERs and makes it clear that they must be dynamic, maintained records managed and interpreted by specialists. It gives a strong steer towards the use of CIfA standards (including compliance by local government with the Standard and guidance for archaeological advice to historic environment services), and advises on the use of Registered Organisations and CIfA-accredited individuals. It also provides a more flexible model planning condition that will go some way to reducing the risk of conditions being discharged before they have been honoured by planning applicants, with the problems that has brought to the funding and completion of programmes of analysis.
Jan Wills, Hon Chair of CIfA, said:
This new advice, formally linked to government planning policy and guidance in England, reinforces the good professional practice that CIfA members have established over years of developer-funded archaeology. Taken with our recent award of a Royal Charter, it represents the maturity of our profession, and builds a solid foundation for our future. The profession will be discussing the implications of this and other developments at the CIfA annual conference in Cardiff on 15 to 17 April.
Enquiries about this press release please contact:
Tim Howard
T. +44 (0) 118 378 6446
tim.howard [at] archaeologists.net
