England is a historic country and our system for protecting the best of the past has been emulated around the world.

So why change it?

We can be proud of our system of heritage protection and the role it has played in celebrating and protecting England’s culture and history.  However, the current system has developed piecemeal over the last 120 years, is not as transparent or efficient as it could be and has become complicated to use.

What is English Heritage doing?

Since 2000, we have been improving the way heritage is looked after and identified.  We are doing what we can to help make the system simpler to use and more up-to-date with the modern planning process. Some changes under Heritage Protection Reform have already been achieved, for example PPS5: Planning for the Historic Environment  and more is on its way:

• HER21 scheme helping us to developing a strategy to enable HPR consistent HERS
• A consultation on guidance to develop local lists
• The National Heritage List for England, an online record of all nationally designated heritage assets is now available to search on the english heritage website

Further information on Heritage Protection Reform is available from the English Heritage Heritage Protection Reform web pages.

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