34 C O N T E X T 1 1 6 : S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 0 Archaeological view Historic characterisation at the heart of the planning process planners that for any plan promoting major change to be considered sound, it must have a robust evidence base in relation to the historic environment of the area under consideration. The Brierley Hill Area Action Plan (BHAAP) has proved a case in point. The need for the area action plan can be traced back in policy terms to the phase one revision to theWest Midlands Regional Spatial Strategy (2008). This set out the future long-term plans for the transformation of the Black Country and included the designation of Brierley Hill as the new strategic town centre for the borough of Dudley. The creation of the new town centre requires the complete integration of a historic high street and its hinterland with Merry Hill, formerly a major out-of-town shopping centre. It will involve providing substantial retail, commercial and housing development alongside major infrastructure works. In historic environment terms this needed to be viewed in the context of Dudley’s unitary development plan. This, among other things, includes a policy commitment to protect the historic character and local distinctiveness of the borough. To strengthen this, a supplementary planning document (SPD), the Dudley Borough Landscape and Townscape Character Study, was prepared in 2006. This provided a detailed but broadbased definition of a range of locally distinctive character types and areas could be related to various phases of the borough’s historic evolution. By 2007 a draft Black-Country-wide historic landscape character study (HLC) had been carried out under the auspices of English Heritage. This identified many thousands of character areas, based on current land use and period of origin, such as 19th century terraced housing. This was intentionally a strategic study that did not focus down to the level of individual structures and spaces and, significantly, did not seek to assign any particular value or consider relative significance as between the different character types identified. The Dudley SPD, by contrast, included guidance on the production of local area character appraisals. It was envisaged that these would be needed in circumstances where it was deemed appropriate to secure a fine-grained Jonathan Smith (‘Towards integrated heritage management’, Context 113, March 2010) has described how Gloucester City Council is moving towards the creation of a cross-cutting historic environment team. In Dudley, a unitary council in the Black Country, we have operated with an integrated team of conservation officers and archaeologists for the past ten years or more. Three officers currently have dual professional qualifications. In practice we find that a significant overlap in the skills sets as between conservation and archaeology specialisms makes it quite straightforward (while also making excellent practical sense) to deal with casework on a whole-historicenvironment basis. This is regardless of the legal status of the asset in question although, for example, it clearly takes a trained conservation officer to deal with the listed building consent process and an archaeologist to deal with the requirements of PPS5-related fieldwork. Dudley also compiles and maintains its own historic environment record, covering all heritage assets in the borough. This is used by conservation officers and archaeologists alike in the course of their day-to-day work, acting as a unifying force. Crucially the data is also made available through the corporate GIS for use as an information resource by planners and other colleagues across the authority, triggering necessary consultation at the earliest possible stage. Dudley’s historic environment team (HET), while providing an integrated service in historic environment terms, has always sought to become an integrated and thereby valued component of the wider planning service, and beyond. HET currently sits within the planning policy team and has direct links to development control and building control. From this vantage point it has proved possible to factor in historic environment issues right at the inception of the local development framework process. In preparing area action plans, for instance, there is a ready acceptance among Dudley’s policy Brierley Hill Town Centre (Image: David Lock Associates) Character zones in Brierley Hill (Image:The Conservation Studio)
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