Heritage reform plans unveiled

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport has unveiled legislation that would lead to a major shake-up of the heritage system.

The draft Heritage Protection Bill published on Wednesday contains plans to replace the listing, scheduling and registering of sites and buildings for protection with a single new regime in England and Wales, the heritage register.

Under the plans, responsibility for designating land-based assets in England would be transferred from the DCMS to English Heritage.

The Bill would also give a greater say to local councils and communities on heritage issues through increased consultations and appeals against decisions.

And more marine sites could be protected with the licensing system widened to include offshore assets.

Ministers said it would, when parliamentary time allows, be the first piece of legislation in the area for 30 years.

Culture secretary Andy Burnham said: "Heritage protection is as important as anything else we do in this department.

"But nobody can sit in an office in London and decide what is heritage or not. Local communities have strong feelings about their own heritage and it is important that those voices are heard.

"By unifying the protection regimes, encouraging wider participation, and making the system more transparent we aim to make heritage protection easier to understand and manage, and help it become an integral part of public life."

English Heritage chairman Lord Bruce Lockhart added that the publication was "a major step forward towards the way England's heritage is identified, protected and managed".

"Although most people believe the present system has served us well, it has grown over the last 100 years through incremental legislation," he said.

"We are left with a system which is over-complex, with confusing overlaps, and hard to understand.

"We now need reform which simplifies, which brings efficiency and effectiveness, which involves the public and adds clear and visible accountability."