The documents your listed building needs, prepared for you

Start here: the appraisal — £195

Every project begins with a Preliminary Planning and Heritage Appraisal (PPHA). It is a short, plain-English report on your building: what protects it, which policies apply, what consents your plans are likely to need, and what is missing before anything is drawn.

It costs £195. It tells you, before you commit to anything more, whether your plans are realistic and what the rest of the work involves.

See a sample appraisal

Then the documents the council asks for

Once the appraisal has shown what your building and your plans need, Giles quotes for the rest before any of it starts. Each document builds on the one before, so nothing is written twice.

Statement of Heritage Significance

What makes your building special, and which parts matter most. Built from a site visit, historic maps, a photographic record and a study of the fabric, then graded on a plan of the building. Everything that follows rests on it.

Heritage Impact Assessment

Your proposals tested, element by element, against that significance: what is gained, what harm there is and how much, and how it has been kept to a minimum. This is the document the conservation officer reads most closely.

Planning and Heritage Statement

The statement the council reads first. It sets out what is being applied for, which policies apply and where each is answered, and includes the Design and Access Statement.

See a full set, start to finish

Old Posingford Farmhouse is a Grade II listed farmhouse in the High Weald, where a nineteenth-century brick barn is proposed for its next life as warm, dry rooms. Giles prepared the Statement of Heritage Significance, the Heritage Impact Assessment and the Planning and Heritage Statement for the application. All four documents, from the first appraisal on, are published in full as a worked example.

1. READY?Preliminary Planning and Heritage Appraisal
2. READ…Statement of Heritage Significance
3. …RESPONDHeritage Impact Assessment
4. RESOLVE!Planning and Heritage Statement, with the Design and Access Statement

The application was submitted to Wealden District Council in September 2026 and has not yet been decided. The client's name is withheld in the published documents.

Read about the project

Who this is for

Owners of listed buildings and homes in conservation areas, and the developers who buy and restore them. If you are planning changes and would rather the heritage case were made properly, by a heritage architect, from the start, this is where to begin.