Our services
We provide a range of heritage related services to architectural practices and private individuals. We cover the majority of Mid and North Wales, including Gwynedd, Anglesey, Denbighshire, Flintshire, Powys, Ceredigion, Wrexham, and Snowdonia National Park Authority.
Development in the Historic Environment
Planning Officers, Conservation Officers, Archaeologists and Heritage Consultants have unfairly been cast in the role of the villain in the eyes of Developers. This could not be further from the truth. Adfer’s primary goal is never to obstruct development, but rather to facilitate it in a way that balances the needs of our clients with the overarching aim of preserving our historic environment.
A good heritage consultant will provide detailed, impartial advice on your proposed development at any stage of the process, whether you have preliminary ideas or already have full-fledged designs in place. By providing expert knowledge and amending designs to make them more acceptable from a heritage perspective, whilst ensuring the client’s needs are still met, Adfer can make a valuable contribution to your design team and reduce the likelihood of objections on heritage grounds. I would stress that it would be beneficial to be involved at the earliest possible stage.
We believe in making conservation of our heritage accessible and understandable to all. We aim to ensure that all documents we produce use plain English and avoid unnecessary jargon.
Listed Building and Conservation Area Advice including advice to LPA
At Adfer, we are experienced in planning law as it relates to heritage inside and out and can identify the constraints and opportunities that are specific to your scheme early on so that they can be mitigated from the start, saving you time, money, and unnecessary friction with the local planning authority. By engaging with heritage issues from the beginning rather than ignoring them, you will be in a better position to put forward a scheme which is not only higher quality, but more likely to achieve successful Planning Permission and/or Listed Building Consent.
For individual clients, some may consider tackling a Listed Building Consent application on their own, as many schemes can be relatively straightforward. However, even the most straightforward applications can be delayed or refused on heritage grounds that they had not previously considered. Having an experienced heritage professional on board to provide advice along the way and engage with the local planning authority on your behalf can be the difference between a successful outcome on the first try and having to spend extra time and money on an appeal application following a refusal, which could have been avoided.
Although we will always try to make your desired proposals a reality, an experienced heritage consultant should also be honest with you about which elements of your scheme are not acceptable from a heritage standpoint and work with you and your design team to come up with a suitable alternative. Adfer has good working relationships with Local Archaeological Trusts, Planning Officers, Conservation Officers, National Amenity Societies, as well as with Cadw and Historic England.
We can also offer LPA support on LBC and Planning applications on a case by case basis.
Heritage Impact Assesments
Heritage impact assessment is a structured process to make sure that you take the significance of your historic asset into account when you are developing and designing proposals for change. It is a core part of the design process, which tests whether your proposals for change to a historic asset are appropriate by assessing their impact on its significance. It helps to ensure that any changes use the principles of good design to sustain or enhance the significance of your historic asset.
By creating a Heritage Impact Assessment, you’re bringing everything there is to know about your site’s heritage into one place, allowing you to state with confidence what the impact of your proposed scheme will be to the Local Authority Planners. This includes everything from an inspection and assessment of the physical fabric on site to a thorough study of everything else, including the local landscape, other listed or protected buildings nearby, the history of your site researched from archive material, and all the historic mapping available to show how your site has changed over time.
The assessment process can help you to develop your proposals, identify alternative approaches and lead to improvements in planning and design. This means being clear from the outset about what you want to achieve. Once you have your objective in mind, it is a good idea to begin your Heritage Impact Assessment before you start planning your proposal. You can use the assessment process to help you understand the significance of your historic asset and identify the most appropriate way to meet your objective using good design principles to sustain or enhance your historic asset.
Heritage Impact Assessments are a legal requirement in Wales for Listed Building Consent and Conservation Area Consent applications and are usually required for development affecting heritage assets.
An application cannot be validated by the Local Authority without one. In England, assessing significance is a core part of the NPPF policies and Heritage Impact Assessments are an important requirement for development proposals. In some local authorities, it is a policy requirement to submit a Heritage Impact Assessment for certain types of development.
Advice on buying and selling a Listed Building
Buying and Selling
Engaging Adfer Conservation to assess the listed building can identify opportunities and roadblocks to any proposed scheme. For the cost of a tiny fraction of the overall sale price, Adfer can determine for you ahead of time what may or may not be possible and how you could go about achieving your plans.
Adfer can also flag up potential issues, such as flagging work done without planning in the past that could become your responsibility as the new owner, which could prevent costly mistakes or at least enable you to negotiate a more reasonable price for the property.
Service
Works can include visiting the site and site appraisal, written report including planning policies, constraints, advice on alterations and materials, highlighting significant elements, general condition, thermal efficiency advice. Advisory ideas on possible allowable development in line with conservation policies and local planning guidance.
We can provide a quick turnaround if required.
