Non-designated heritage assets (NDHAs) are currently identified in a number of ways, including neighbourhood plans, conservation area character appraisals, and decision-making on planning applications. The legitimacy and weight within the planning system of NDHAs is increased when included on a list that has been produced in accordance with defined selection criteria.
Table 1: The following defined selection criteria may be used to assess if a building or site within the District should be considered a NDHA. In determining planning applications which affect non-designated heritage assets, the Council will take into consideration these criteria, as part of the decision making process.
| Selection criteria |
Definition |
| Aesthetic merit |
Aesthetic merit or ‘value’ derives from the ways in which people draw sensory and intellectual stimulation from a building, structure or landscape. It can be the result of the conscious design of a building, structure or landscape, including artistic endeavour, or it can be fortuitous.
Design value relates primarily to the aesthetic qualities generated by the conscious design of a building, structure or landscape as a whole. It embraces composition (form, proportions, massing, silhouette, views and vistas, circulation) and usually materials or planting, decoration or detailing, and craftsmanship. Strong indicators of significance are likely to include quality of design and execution, and innovation.
Buildings, structures or landscapes that are not the product of formal design but have developed more of less fortuitously over time can also have aesthetic value. These may include the seemingly organic form of an urban or rural landscape, or the relationship of vernacular buildings and structures to their setting. Evolution and use over time are therefore likely to be strong indicators of fortuitous design value.
View English Heritage’s Conservation Principles
|
| Age |
The age of a building, structure or designed landscape is likely to be an important criterion. The older a building, structure or landscape is, and the fewer the surviving examples of its kind, the more likely it is to have ‘age value’.
Age and rarity often go hand-in-hand.
|
| Archaeological interest |
NDHAs with archaeological interest may provide evidence about past human activity in the locality, which may be in the form of buried remains, but may also be revealed in the structure of buildings, or in a designed landscape. NDHAs with archaeological interest are primary sources of evidence about the substance and evolution of places, and of the people and cultures that made them.
View Historic England Advice Note 7
Age is likely to be a strong indicator of relative archaeological interest, although not a prerequisite.
Strong indicators of archaeological interest are likely to be the material remains of past human activity and surviving historic fabric.
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| Architectural interest |
Architectural interest derives from the intrinsic design and aesthetic value of a building, structure or landscape relating to local and/or national styles, materials, construction and craft techniques, or any other distinctive characteristics.
Examples may include building types or technologies, plan form, engineering and technological innovation, and function (including original design and planned use).
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| Group value |
Group value is likely to include ‘groupings’ of buildings, structures, or landscapes with a clear visual design or historic relationship.
For buildings in particular, this is likely to include the extent to which the exterior of the building contributes to the architectural or historic interest of any group of buildings of which it forms part. Architectural or historic unity or a fine example of planning (e.g. squares, terraces or model villages) or where there is a historical functional relationship between the buildings.
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| Historic interest/association |
Historic interest or ‘value’ derives from the ways in which past people, events and aspects of life can be connected through a place to the present. It can be illustrative or associative.
Illustrative
A historic building, for example, may provide insights into past communities and their activities incorporate the first or only surviving example of a particular historic type, or it may still used for its intended purpose.
It is also likely to have evidential or archaeological interest in terms of surviving historic fabric (material record of the past).
Associative
For example, a historic building, structure or landscape associated with a notable family, person, event or movement.
|
| Integrity or "sense of completeness" |
Wholeness, honesty. For example, the proportion of the original layout still in evidence. |
| Known architect/designer/builder |
This person may have been locally and/or nationally known. Please also see associative historic interest (above). |
| Landmark status |
A NDHA with strong communal or historical associations, or because it has especially striking aesthetic value, may be singled out as a landmark within the local scene. |
| Rarity |
Last surviving example of a building, structure or landscape of a particular type or kind.
Whilst not always the case, the older a building, structure or landscape is, and the fewer the surviving examples of its kind, the more likely it is to have ‘heritage value’.
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| Selectivity or representativeness |
For example, a building, structure or landscape that represents a particular historical type.
This type of NDHA is also likely to have architectural and historic interest (associative).
|
| Social or communal value |
Social and communal interest may be regarded as a sub-set of historic interest but has special value in local listing.
As noted in the Planning Practice Guidance (PPG): “Heritage assets with historic interest not only provide a material record of our nation’s history, but can also provide meaning for communities derived from their collective experience of a place and can symbolise wider values such as faith and cultural identity”
Planning Practice Guidance
It therefore relates to places perceived as a source of local identity, distinctiveness, social interaction and coherence, contributing to the ‘collective memory’ of a place
Historic England Advice Note 7
Examples of NDHAs with social or communal value could include war and other memorials (not all are nationally listed), village halls and other meeting places, pavilions, village wells, and pumps.
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Please note that a number of buildings, structures and sites within the District have already been identified as non-designated heritage assets via the following:
- Neighbourhood Plans
- Conservation Area Character Appraisals
- Article 4 directions
- The decision-making process on planning applications
Further information:
