Guidance Open for Consultation

Our written advice is available to local planning authorities alongside owners and developers when they are considering proposed changes to historic buildings, monuments, places and landscapes, usually referred to as heritage assets.

Historic England's published planning advice comes in two forms:

• Good Practice Advice notes (GPAs) - provide supporting information on good practice, particularly looking at the principles of how national policy and guidance can be applied.
• Historic England Advice Notes (HEANs) - include detailed, practical advice on how to implement national planning policy and guidance.

We keep our advice under review and update it in light of changes to the National Planning Policy Framework.

Historic buildings have a critical role to play in climate action. They can and must adapt to ensure they meet the future’s need for a low carbon society. Protecting historic buildings and addressing climate change are compatible goals; they can both be achieved.

This Advice Note sets out how carbon reduction, energy efficiency, and small-scale renewable and low-carbon energy generation measures can be accommodated and supported in historic buildings.

For more information on Historic England’s role in the planning system and how HEANs fit in see further explanation on our website.

Historic England always consults on new advice notes, both internally and externally, to ensure they are accurate and useful, drawing on sector expertise and knowledge.

We want to ensure that the Advice Note is effective and gives clear advice to help local planning authorities determine applications relating to climate change mitigation. We welcome comments that will help us improve the effectiveness of the Advice Note.

This Advice Note sets out a more progressive stance on delivering climate change mitigation and adaptation and is consistent with current government planning policy. We are aiming to make it clear that it is not a question of if historic buildings can be adapted to be more energy efficient but a question of how.

Conserving and making the most of our heritage and addressing climate change are not mutually exclusive aims; they can both be achieved, and this Advice Note sets out a clear position on how we will approach giving advice in the planning system.

Historic buildings need to be made more energy efficient and if done thoughtfully can support a low carbon economy. With 5.1 million historic homes in England, appropriate adaptation can help us to reach Net Zero.

We will support local authorities with advice and guidance and will be delivering training on this topic soon. We have developed a new training platform for the heritage and planning sector to do this.

Sympathetically upgrading and reusing buildings not just improves energy efficiency but keeping a building in use avoids losing the carbon emissions embodied in the building from its construction.

This Advice Note was developed to address the immediate need for historic buildings to play a critical role to lower carbon emissions, our reliance on fossil fuels, and household bills.

We recognise the role that other elements of the historic environment, beyond buildings, can play in delivering climate action. We also recognise that our responses to climate change can impact all aspects of the historic environment, beyond just buildings and beyond just carbon reduction and energy saving measures.

We will be producing advice on other climate challenges affecting the historic environment and have started the process of identifying additional advice requirements.