Heritage Asset Information Management in Kent - A new project
In March 2010 the government introduced a new planning policy statement called PPS5. This new policy replaced the older policies, PPG15 and PPG16, which had underpinned how historic buildings and archaeological sites had been managed in the planning system. One consequence of the new policy affects databases of information about historic sites, called Historic Environment Records (HERs, formerly known as Sites and Monuments Records). The Kent HER, maintained by Kent County Council and available online at www.kent.gov.uk/HER, has to become more comprehensive, storing information on a wider range of heritage sites, and more accessible. It needs to become the ‘one stop shop’ for people looking for information about the heritage of Kent, whether they want information on archaeological sites, artefacts, historic buildings (whether listed or not) or historic landscape information.
To help the HER develop in this way, Kent County Council has won a small grant from English Heritage to develop a set of guidelines for the management of heritage information in Kent. We are working with Maidstone and Gravesham Borough Councils and the Campaign for the Protection of Rural England (Kent Historic Buildings Committee) to try to understand better what heritage information is being collected and what it is used for. This will help us to expand the HER and keep it up to date, produce new ways to support information-gathering projects and help ensure that people or organisations using this information can have the widest access possible. The project is due to finish in March 2011.
In the last few weeks, most local history and archaeology groups in Kent should have been sent a small questionnaire in which we asked them to tell us about their information-gathering projects. Responses have included information on a range of projects including carrying out surveys of historic gravestones, producing lists of buildings of local character and researching information on historic buildings in conservation areas.
If any group has not been contacted in this way Kent County Council would be very grateful to hear from them so that we can get a fuller picture of what kind of information people are gathering.
For more information please contact Paul Cuming at paul.cuming@kent.gov.uk or call 01622 696918.