Engaging with Heritage and Historic Environment Policy: Agency, Interpretation and Implementation

Hana Morel · Michael Dawson

Jun 2021 · Routledge

About this eBook

A comprehensive review of policy and practice in the historic environment, this book exposes the tensions, challenges and difficulties faced by the heritage sector at a time of political volatility.

This collection comes at a key moment for planning policy in the historic environment of England. The papers reflect a wide range of views and experience in the practical environment of policy and implementation. Contributors give perspectives on both policy and practice from legal counsel to local authorities, from the country’s largest NGO to the museums sector. Some conclusions are controversial, providing an important insight into the operation of national and local government.

The thrust of the volume is the need to close the gap between research and policy production. Written when the UK government’s White Paper, Planning for the Future (August 2020), was in preparation, the chapters explore the implementation of policy, its unexpected and unanticipated outcomes and the enduring legacies of guidance and established practice. It highlights tensions within the sector and the need for collaboration and partnership. This book is the most recent and comprehensive review of how the heritage sector has evolved and draws special attention to the importance of the historic environment, not just in planning policy but for the country as a whole.

The chapters in this book were originally published in The Historic Environment: Policy & Practice.

About the author

Hana Morel is an archaeologist and heritage practitioner, currently working as Senior Policy Advisor (Climate Change) for Historic England. Previously, she worked as Research Associate at University College London where she led the AHRC-funded Heritage Priority Area project, ‘Opening Pathways across Heritage Research, Policy and Practice’, on the need to engage with government policy on regional, national and international levels and support the contribution which heritage research can make to public policy and heritage-related policy.

Michael Dawson is archaeologist and heritage consultant, Director of Heritage at RPS. Author of several books including the recent Heritage Under Pressure (2019). His research interests lie in the application of conservation policy and he is editor of the journal Historic Environment Policy and Practice and a panel lecturer at the Oxford University Department of Continuing Education.