Historic Environment and Townscape

Our Historic Environment and Townscape (HEaT) team has unmatched experience and expertise in advising on various developments within the built environment.

• Asset type: Our work encompasses all forms of sensitive land: World Heritage Sites, Scheduled Monuments, Registered Parks and Gardens, Conservation Areas, and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty in addition to Green Belt and Metropolitan Open Land.
• Locations: We have a large portfolio of work in Greater London and other UK cities, as well as in rural districts, where we advise on country house and landscape projects.
• Approach: We work closely with clients and their design teams to shape their development, whether that involves a single-listed building or large-scale masterplans and urban extensions in rural settings. This breadth of experience is brought together to ensure careful evidence gathering about assets and their settings, analysis of planning policy and contribution to the planning strategy, collaborative working, authoritative advice and robust assessment.

Our townscape and visual impact service supports clients and their consultant teams in evolving and refining designs, whether for a tall building or an infill development in a historic market town.

experience

We have a large team led by seven senior Partners. The team combines planning, heritage, property, urban design, architecture and history. A particular strength is our ability to work across heritage and townscape, recognising that these topics overlap and that a joined-up service delivers the best value to clients and projects.

Underpinning everything we do is a focus on deliverable outcomes that make for better places to live, work and visit.

Expertise

Our expertise is broad and covers areas that interact closely with one another: the historic environment, urban design, townscape, landscape, sustainability and town planning. We assist at all stages of the development planning process, from feasibility to detailed design and delivery at the conditions discharge stage. We are specialists in:

• Alterations and extensions to listed buildings
• New development affecting all forms of designated and sensitive land, from World Heritage Sites, Conservation Areas and the setting of listed buildings to Green Belt and historic landscapes.
• The promotion of tall buildings
• Townscape and visual impact assessment
• Assessment of designation risk and owner representation
• Expert Witness work at planning appeals, the Lands Tribunal, High Court and arbitration
• Design review and advice on architect selection
• Clients and Professional Relationships

Our clients include the country’s leading developers as well as public bodies and charities in the education, arts and museum sectors. Fundamental to our success is close working with fellow professionals in local authorities and consultees, whether Historic England or amenity societies. Several of our team are involved in local Design Review Panels.

Research

We offer a dedicated research service, with expert staff holding doctorates in the history of architecture and landscape. Many advisory staff have advanced qualifications in these topics (MA and doctorate).

Research has a wide application, whether establishing the validity of historic restrictive covenants, the extent of a listed building or the analysis of a multi-phase asset or piece of land.

For more information on our specific areas of expertise, please follow the navigation at the top of the page or contact our team. We are happy to help.