During 1997-98, the Monuments Protection Programme has continued its successful rapid review of the overall archaeological resource and its project of modernising and enlarging the Schedule. By the end of the year, the number of scheduled monuments (separate entries on the Schedule) had risen from c 12,500 in 1990, when Monument Protection Programme scheduling began, to 17,483 and over a third of the original Schedule has now been reviewed and modernised. During this review, some old scheduled monuments are being found no longer to merit scheduling, and these are put forward for descheduling. In 1997-98, a particular focus was put on the descheduling of buildings which have been listed since they were originally scheduled prior to c 1950, and for which listing alone offers the most sensible method of management. Many of these are public buildings such as market halls, libraries, and sometimes townhouses, which form a major part of townscape character.
Measuring progress in terms of the number of scheduled monuments, however, understates the progress that the Monuments Protection Programme is making. Much of our work does not lead to scheduling, and we often group several sites within one scheduled monument. Detailed assessment of nationally important sites by Monuments Protection Programme archaeologists and consultants does not always result in scheduling, yet represents a significant step forward in managing the resource. In many cases, for example, careful consideration of management-related issues makes it clear that scheduling is not the most appropriate management regime for some nationally-important monuments. In urban areas particularly (leaving aside discrete sites such as castles or monasteries in public open space), archaeological deposits, no matter how important, are most appropriately managed through the planning system by means of PPG-16 procedures. This is why the English Heritage Extensive Urban Survey programme, and its attendant conservation and management zoning, is so important. Scheduling would not be the right designation.
This greater attention to the underlying requirements of conservation, rather than simply designating the best sites without further thought as to the consequences or need, relates importantly to two much wider English Heritage initiatives: the Monuments at Risk Survey and Sustainability. The conclusions of the Monuments at Risk project concerning the scale of threat and management requirements of different elements of the resource or different areas of the country make it abundantly clear that the Monuments Protection Programme must continue apace as a major component of our work. Our use of the Monuments Protection Programme, however, must carefully consider the place of scheduling indeed of all designations - in sustainability.
English Heritage's discussion paper Sustaining the historic environment was published in March 1997. It set out a new approach for the whole of the historic environment that recognises that there is a need for designations, but that designations must take their proper place in the wider scheme of things. Particularly important is the need to recognise the significance of the local and commonplace as well as the special, and to accept that society as a whole often attributes multiple values to any area or site. It is as important to find ways to manage properly the overall historic or archaeological character of an area, in the full knowledge that it will change but that its evolution can be controlled and influenced, as it is to protect individual sites. This is particularly relevant at a landscape scale, where much better understanding is needed than presently exists. Hence English Heritage's programme of Historic Landscape Characterisation, our settlement mapping project commissioned from Durham University (which is currently approaching publication stage), and our Urban Strategy programmes.
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