Landscape Policy Award For Assesment of Protected Views

English Heritage's publication Seeing the History in the View has won the Landscape Institute Award for Landscape Policy.

The guidance, helps to assess heritage significance within the country's most sensitive protected views and demonstrates the objective principles behind English Heritage's advice on some of the country’s most high-profile planning cases.  Now being updated after public consultation, it is the first guidance of its kind to plug a gap in an area that had been the subject of debate at many public inquiries. 

English Heritage's consistent and transparent method for identifying the historic significance of views is referenced in the Mayor's London Views Management Framework and will therefore have a real influence on planning decisions in London, where it will help shape the cityscape and skyline. Developers will be able to see clearly how to avoid conflict and where to find opportunities. 

Thorough consultation ensured that Seeing the History in the View is fully compatible with existing guidance such as the London Plan and English Heritage's Conservation Principles.  At an international level it responds to UNESCO's request to develop objective assessment techniques for analysing the impact of future development proposals on the Outstanding Universal Value of World Heritage Sites.

Judges commented "The winner was considered to be significant because it set out in a clear fashion how the impact of tall buildings should be assessed in relation to the scale of built heritage in cities. The methodology is very familiar from landscape impact assessment, but here applied to the urban condition. This work shows that assessment of 'townscape' is not the sole preserve of conservationists, architects, and urban designers, but also integral to the work of landscape architects."

The policy guidance Seeing the History in the View can be downloaded as a pdf  from english-heritage.org.uk/historyinviews

 

For more information contact English Heritage Corporate Communications via email on lindsay.douglas@english-heritage.org.uk  or on 020 7973 3293.