No. 17 • October 2021
Heritage Partnership Agreements — Latest News
Heritage partnership agreements — the voluntary agreements for the long-term management of scheduled monuments and listed buildings introduced by the Historic Environment (Wales) Act 2016 — will come into full effect in Wales on 1 January 2022.
The Deputy Minister for Arts and Sport, Dawn Bowden MS, made the required commencement order on 16 September and the Senedd approved the necessary supporting regulations for scheduled monuments and listed buildings yesterday (19 October).
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 New guidance, Heritage Partnership Agreements in Wales, can be downloaded from the Cadw website. This explains the benefits that a heritage partnership agreement can deliver and what you need to do to if you want to create one.
If you are planning a heritage partnership agreement, Cadw would be very interested to know; please contact us on historicenvironmentleg@gov.wales
Historic Parks and Gardens — The Statutory Register
The commencement order made by the Deputy Minister for Arts and Sport on 16 September will also bring the statutory register of historic parks and gardens in Wales into force on 1 February 2022. Provision for the statutory register was made in the Historic Environment (Wales) Act 2016. Since the passage of the Act, Cadw has reviewed the boundaries of all the parks and gardens on the current non-statutory register — nearly 400 — and consulted with their owners.
© Hawlfraint y Goron / Crown copyright (2021) Cymru Wales
Once the register becomes statutory, all of the registered sites will appear on Cof Cymru, Cadw’s online database of designated historic assets in Wales. However, the statutory register will not impose any new legal restrictions on Wales’ historic parks and gardens or introduce a new consent regime. Registered sites will continue to receive the current level of protection through the planning system.
For more information on historic parks and gardens, consult our guidance, Managing Change to Registered Historic Parks and Gardens in Wales, on the Cadw website.
Historic Environment Consolidation — Progress
Mick Antoniw MS, the Counsel General and Minister for the Constitution, has made two important statements to the Senedd regarding the historic environment consolidation Bill. In July, he confirmed that the Bill would be part of the Welsh Government’s legislative programme for the year ahead. Introduction of the Bill to the Senedd is planned for spring 2022.
On September 21, the Counsel General addressed the Senedd after the publication of the Welsh Government’s first programme to improve the accessibility of modern Welsh law, as required by the Legislation (Wales) Act 2019.
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 In his speech, he used the historic environment consolidation Bill to illustrate his remarks on the significant contribution that consolidation will make to improving the accessibility of the law.
‘The work that has already been done on the draft Bill shows the benefits that consolidation will bring. Legislation for listed buildings and scheduled monuments has been brought together and restated to make it more logical, easier to read and more internally consistent across the various provisions. In future, users will be able to turn to one piece of primary legislation for the law on the management and the protection of the historic environment, and that law will be made for Wales alone and will be fully bilingual.’
Working with our colleagues in the Office of the Legislative Counsel and Legal Services, we have now considered the drafting for roughly half of the new Bill, including the chapters on designation and consents for scheduled monuments and listed buildings. The Welsh drafting of the Bill is also proceeding well.
Much, however, remains to be done. In addition to the drafting of the remainder of the Bill, we need to prepare the explanatory notes and memorandum and the other documentation that must accompany the legislation on introduction. Since the Bill is scheduled for the first year of the Welsh Government’s legislative programme, we have some very tight deadlines to meet. If all goes according to plan and the Bill meets with the Senedd’s approval, it should receive Royal Assent early in 2023. We shall turn our attention to the implementation of the legislation, once we have a complete draft Bill.
Keep checking the New Legislation section of the Cadw website for further information on our consolidation project.
Local Planning Authorities and Listed Building Consent — Change in Regulations
Under new regulations that came into force on 16 August, local planning authorities in Wales no longer need to apply to the Welsh Ministers for listed building consent for buildings in local authority ownership. The Welsh Government’s Chief Planner has written to authorities to explain that an authority can now handle its own consent applications for the alteration or extension of listed buildings, but it must notify the Welsh Ministers if it is minded to grant consent. This allows the Welsh Ministers to decide whether they want to call in an application for their own determination, or allow the authority to proceed to determine the application itself. Applications for demolition of a listed building will still need to be made to the Welsh Ministers.
These changes bring the listed building consent procedures for local authority buildings into general alignment with well-established planning practice — Welsh local planning authorities have been determining their own planning applications for years.
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