Cultural Heritage in Eia — Reflections on Practice in North West Europe

Abstract

North-West Europe has a rich cultural heritage which is increasingly prone to impacts from development activities. This paper reports the findings of the "Planarch" study funded by the European Regional Development Fund Interreg IIIB programme. Overall, whilst there are examples of good practice, cultural heritage has a relatively low profile in EIA in the countries studied. Nevertheless, cultural heritage is important and makes wider contributions to society beyond its intrinsic value. Therefore, the profile of cultural heritage needs to be raised both within the planning process and EIA, and also in the minds of decision-makers, other specialists and the wider public. Ten guiding principles provide a first step in promoting the assessment of cultural heritage in EIA, and also to build the consideration of cultural heritage into more strategic planning decisions through SEA.

Improving heritage impact assessment: an analytical critique of the ICOMOS guidelines

“…In EU legislation, Directive 85/337/EEC specifically mentions the impact on cultural heritage as one of the factors that should be assessed within an EIA (CEU 1997). However, the adequacy of the coverage of heritage within EIA has been strongly criticized by both practitioners and academics (for example, Bond et al 2004;Jones and Slinn 2008;Jerpåsen and Larsen 2011). Their criticisms have predominantly focused on four points: (1) heritage was often not included in the impact analyses being undertaken, even where it was highly evident that it should have been (King 2000;Fleming 2008;Jones and Slinn 2008;Antonson, Gustafsson, and Angelstam 2010); (2) the impact assessment tended to occur too late in the planning process for any meaningful action to be taken to address the impacts (Bond et al 2004); (3) impact assessment practitioners were not sufficiently familiar with heritage management insights (Langstaff and Bond 2002;Teller and Bond 2002;Jerpåsen and Larsen 2011); and (4) the methods used to determine the impacts of developments on cultural heritage were inadequate (Teller and Bond 2002;Bond et al 2004;Masser 2006;Antonson, Gustafsson, and Angelstam 2010;Lindblom 2012).…”

Environmental Impact Assessment and Strategic Environmental Assessment Research in the Uk

“…Aspects that are currently the main focus in only about 1% or less of the publications (which usually means one or two papers) include transboundary EIA/SEA, cultural aspects in EIA/SEA, environmental governance, environmental justice, specific methodological aspects, such as screening, scoping, determination of impact significance, generation of baseline data, use of indicators, mitigation and conference reports (eg. Weston, 2011;Jones and Slinn, 2008;Fischer, 2006b;Wood et al, 2006).…”

An urban regeneration model in heritage areas in search of sustainable urban development and internal cohesion

“…As noted previously, Lawless (2004) studies the ABIs and discusses three major themes that have proved central to the wider urban debate: community engagement, partnership working and the complexity of ABIs. Eden and Tunstall (2006) suggest how to address the ecological aspect within research and practical agendas for urban restoration projects, while several authors (Evans and Shaw, 2001; Stubbs, 2004; Evans, 2005; Jones and Slinn, 2008; Nijkamp and Riganti, 2008; among others) highlight the increasing role of cultural heritage in processes of regeneration and sustainable development of cities and regions. Focusing on urban housing policies, Murie and Rowlands (2008) underline the use of the planning system to deliver different kinds of affordable housing and the resulting styles and densities of urban housing development.…”