Policy information sourced from the Waltham Forest Local Plan

70 Designated Heritage Assets

Designated heritage assets will be conserved, and where possible enhanced, by:

A. Applying a strong presumption in favour of retention and enhancement to ensure the borough’s history, identity and sense of place is protected and maintained for existing and future generations;

B. Requiring a heritage statement to accompany all applications that affect designated heritage assets, clearly explaining the significance of the asset, how it will be affected by the proposal, and providing clear and convincing justification for any change;

C. Giving great weight in the planning process to any harm to designated heritage assets and their settings, irrespective of whether this would amount to substantial harm, total loss or less than substantial harm - all of which will require clear and convincing justification;

D. Not permitting development proposals that would lead to either substantial harm to, or the total loss of, designated heritage assets or their settings unless it can be demonstrated that the proposal achieves substantial public benefits that outweigh that harm or loss, or all of the following apply:

  1. The nature of the heritage asset prevents all reasonable uses of the site;
  2. No viable use of the heritage asset itself can be found in the medium term through appropriate marketing that will enable its conservation;
  3. Conservation by grant funding or some form of charitable or public ownership is demonstrably not possible; and
  4. The harm or loss is outweighed by the benefit of bringing the site back into use;

E. Not permitting development proposals that would lead to less than substantial harm to the significance of a designated heritage asset or its setting unless the public benefit of the proposal, including securing the optimum viable use of the site, outweigh the harm caused;

F. In cases where loss of a designated heritage asset may be justified in accordance with the above and national policy, only granting planning consent when acceptable plans for redevelopment have been agreed, and where all reasonable steps have been taken to ensure the new development will proceed after the loss has occurred;

G. Supporting proposals that sensitively and creatively bring designated heritage assets and/or their settings back into use whilst still maintaining their significance;

H. Where a non-designated asset of archaeological interest is identified via desk-based or field-based assessment work, and is assessed to be of demonstrably equal significance to a scheduled monument, treating it as a designated asset, subject to the conditions of this policy; and

I. Where a developer contribution is sought toward designated heritage assets, notably in cases of enabling development or conservation of archaeological assets, referring to the Developer Contributions Supplementary Planning Document (SPD).

For more information please see the Waltham Forest Local Plan