A required document for any planning application affecting a heritage asset (listed building, conservation area). Sets out significance and justifies design impact.
A heritage statement describes the significance of a heritage asset affected by a proposal and assesses the impact on it. Paragraph 200 of the NPPF requires applicants to describe significance in proportion to the asset's importance, and an application affecting a listed building or conservation area without one is normally invalid.
Listed buildings at Grade I, II* and II; conservation areas; scheduled monuments; registered parks and gardens; and non-designated assets such as locally listed buildings and buildings that positively contribute to a conservation area. A building need not be listed to be an asset.
The history and development of the building, an assessment of what makes it significant — architectural, historic, artistic or archaeological interest — an analysis of how the proposal affects that significance, and a justification for any harm, weighed against public benefits as the NPPF requires.
Photographs, historic maps and the listing description do most of the work. For a householder scheme, four to eight pages that engage specifically with the affected fabric is more persuasive than a generic history.
The NPPF distinguishes substantial harm, which requires exceptional justification, from less than substantial harm, which is weighed against public benefits. Most householder work falls in the second category, and the statement's job is to show the harm is at the low end and that the public benefit — bringing a building back into use, removing an unsympathetic later addition — is real.
Heritage statement in a Kingston upon Thames context: Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames (Kingston Council) runs 22 conservation areas including the Kingston Old Town Conservation Area and the Surbiton Conservation Area, and there is no borough-wide Article 4 direction, so permitted development generally survives outside conservation areas. That decides how heritage statement is handled: £548 and 8 weeks for a Kingston upon Thames householder application, or £274 for the Lawful Development Certificate that records heritage statement as lawful. The law behind heritage statement sits in the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, the GPDO 2015 and the Building Regulations 2010.
| Policy basis | NPPF, Chapter 16 |
|---|---|
| Required for | Listed building consent and conservation area applications |
| Effect if missing | Application usually invalid |
| Harm categories | Substantial / less than substantial |
| Typical householder length | 4–8 pages |
| Listed building consent fee | No fee |
No, though they are often combined into one document for a small scheme.
Usually yes. Non-designated assets still require significance to be described.
There is no statutory qualification, but a conservation-experienced author carries more weight on a Grade II* or I asset.
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