Somewhere outside Shanghai there is a place called Thames Town. It has cobbled streets, mock Tudor pubs, a Gothic church, red telephone boxes and, by most accounts, remarkably few people actually living in it. It was built from scratch in a few years as a replica English market town, and couples travel there to have their wedding photographs taken in front of a Britain that never quite existed. We mention this because Longnor already has the real thing. Our stone was quarried

There is a moment in a group photograph when everyone starts walking and the formal pose falls away. People find their own pace. Someone smiles, someone glances sideways and a collection of individuals begins to look like a team. That is what we like about this photograph of Longnor Heritage. It brings the people into the foreground. Behind the work of caring for old buildings are individuals with different skills, experiences and responsibilities, brought together by a share

Historic buildings survive through the work of successive generations. Someone shaped their timbers, fitted their windows and plastered their walls. Others maintained them, repaired damage and adapted rooms to changing lives. Today’s craftspeople add their own knowledge and labour to that continuity, leaving work that another person will one day care for. The names of the original makers are often lost. Their decisions remain visible: the proportions of a window, the meeting

The historic building should be comfortable to use and capable of meeting a changing climate. The best improvements begin with an understanding of what is already there: how the building loses heat, how it manages moisture, and which features give it its character. A cold room, a draughty sash window and an expensive heating bill can make replacement seem like the obvious answer. In an older building, the obvious answer is not always the right one. A new product may deal with

From discontinued roof tiles to smart devices that stop working when a server is switched off, buildings are often left carrying yesterday’s “latest solution”. Good conservation asks a simple question: can this be repaired, adapted or replaced without throwing everything else away? A well-made building can stand for centuries. Yet many of the products fitted to buildings are designed around the commercial life of a manufacturer, a range or, increasingly, a piece of software.

In heritage planning, the applicant is often the party that makes conservation possible. Architects prepare drawings and heritage consultants assess significance, but it is the owner, operator, developer or institution that must fund repair, manage risk and give a historic building a viable future. Listed Building Consent requires more than an attractive design. Under the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990, decision makers must have special regard to

In listed building planning, the architectural drawing is only part of the picture. A successful application also needs to show that the building has been properly understood before decisions are made about changing it. The current National Planning Policy Framework requires applicants to describe the significance of heritage assets affected by a proposal, including any contribution made by their setting. The level of information should be proportionate to the importance of t

Securing Listed Building Consent across the West Midlands and Staffordshire can be one of the more demanding parts of an architectural project. Local Planning Authorities expect applicants to understand the significance of the building, explain the effect of the proposal, and show that repair methods, materials and new interventions are appropriate to the asset. An analysis of two years of regional planning records identifies practices repeatedly active on listed building and

Anyone who has taken a listed building through the consent process in the West Midlands will recognise the feeling. You submit a carefully considered application for a building you care about, and then you wait. And wait. And when the response finally arrives, it does not read like a conversation about architecture. It reads like a cross-examination. That impression is not paranoia. Having reviewed 261 candidate cases and analysed 250 formal applications determined across the

What Is a Heritage Impact Assessment? A Heritage Impact Assessment, often referred to as a Heritage Statement, is a report which accompanies a planning application or listed building consent application. It explains what is historically important about a building, site or area, and considers how the proposed works would affect that importance. The central idea is significance. Before a local planning authority can make a decision, it needs to understand what is special about

An exhaustive review of Listed Building Consent (LBC) applications across West Midlands planning authorities—encompassing Birmingham, Lichfield, Walsall, Wolverhampton, South Staffordshire, and Cannock Chase—reveals a complex and uncompromising landscape for heritage planning. For architects, heritage consultants, and developers, understanding the empirical determination trends and statutory thresholds applied by individual Local Planning Authorities (LPAs) is critical to mit

An exhaustive review of Listed Building Consent (LBC) applications across West Midlands planning authorities—including Birmingham, Walsall, Lichfield, Cannock Chase, South Staffordshire, and Wolverhampton—reveals distinct and uncompromising patterns in determination outcomes. For architects, heritage consultants, structural engineers, and developers, navigating the statutory framework of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 requires a deep technical

The Window Condition That Can Stop a Listed-Building Project in Its Tracks Winning Listed Building Consent should be a moment of relief. Too often, however, it merely marks the beginning of the next delay. Across the West Midlands, a familiar condition repeatedly appears on Listed Building Consent decisions: before any work starts, the applicant must submit detailed information on the proposed windows and doors for separate written approval. That might sound routine. In pract

If your programme assumes Listed Building Consent will take eight weeks, it is not a programme. It is a hope. For developers, architects and heritage consultants working across the West Midlands, Listed Building Consent (LBC) is often the item that decides whether a scheme starts on time, misses a seasonal window, or sits idle while costs continue to run. The regulations set an eight-week target. Actual cases tell a less tidy story: extensions of time, negotiation over detail

The land is not a blank canvas A site can look perfect on paper: road frontage, services nearby, a decent asking price and a vendor keen to talk. Then the map layers begin to stack up. Green Belt. Flood Zone 3. An Article 4 Direction. A protected bat roost. A safeguarded gas pipeline. Suddenly the question is not ‘what shall we build?’ but ‘is there any realistic route to permission at all?’ England’s planning system is full of these tripwires. Some are hard legal controls; o

If you've submitted a planning application anywhere in England, Scotland or Wales, there's a good chance the council's online register runs on software called Idox Public Access. It's used by a large proportion of local authorities, and once you've learned to navigate one council's version, you've largely learned them all — the same layout, the same document tables, and, unfortunately, the same idiosyncrasies. South Staffordshire Council's portal is a good example to learn fr

Listed building consent ensures that alterations to historic structures preserve their architectural and historical significance. An analysis of 90 planning applications for listed buildings within the Lichfield District over a two-year period reveals the types of conditions planning authorities attach to approvals. The principal finding is that while standard administrative conditions govern almost all projects, authorities frequently impose highly specific requirements to c

Who is advising on Lichfield’s listed buildings? The ten most active advisers identified in applications from 2024 to 2026 Work on a listed building calls for a particular kind of judgement. Seemingly modest changes—altering a window, moving an internal wall or introducing new services—can affect the character that makes a building significant. They may also require Listed Building Consent. We reviewed 90 Listed Building Consent applications submitted across Lichfield Distric

Meet Idox — the hidden digital system sitting behind planning applications, public objections, conservation controls and developer charges across most of Britain. You may never have heard of Idox. But if you have applied for planning permission, objected to a neighbour’s extension, complained about a housing estate, or tried to follow a local development online, there is a fair chance that it has hit you. Not directly, perhaps. Not knowingly. But behind the polite council web

Most owners know if their house is listed. It is usually there in the estate agent’s details, the solicitor’s report, the mortgage paperwork, and sometimes in the slightly anxious look on a builder’s face when you mention changing the windows. But Historic England’s new guidance on local heritage listing shines a light on another category of building that many owners and buyers have never properly understood. The locally listed building. Or, in planning language, a non-design