Design & Access Statements, Heritage Asset Statements

Walsingham Planning prepares Design and Access Statements for most of the planning applications that we submit. These vary in length and elaboration from the very simple affairs of a few pages for minor scale proposals to elaborate glossy presentations for larger schemes.

Walsingham Planning work with the project architects and alongside our own graphic designers to prepare documents that fully analyse the background and context of proposals, perhaps including long range view or landscape analysis, through to explanation of the proposals and how they have been influenced by circumstances and suited to the context.

Design and Access Statements are not only an important part of the “tick list” for any application they can also be very helpful for members of the public, officers and Committee members to understand the logic behind the scheme and see how the application proposal is bespoke for any particular site.

A good Design and Access Statement itself takes time to prepare, but it also takes time to properly go through the processes that the Statement requires. Walsingham Planning will therefore be keen to become involved early in the design process to make sure that there is a thorough and coherent approach.

The PPS 5 introduced in March 2010 introduces the concept of Heritage Asset Statements which may need to be prepared for a range of schemes beyond just applications for Listed Building Consent. A Heritage Asset might be a locally listed building, an ancient monument or even a feature of a Conservation Area, the intention is to cast the net wide. Walsingham Planning now regularly prepares Heritage Asset Statements which investigate the context and background to accompany proposals which must then be assessed against the interest of the asset, any detriment to that interest and any mitigation of the detriment.