Southend on Sea Borough Council Response Regarding Historic Environment

Southend-on-Sea Borough Council 

Department for Place Director of Planning and Transport — Peter Geraghty 

Our ref: DoPT/003 

11th January 2017 

Mr Adrian Corder-Birch 

The Essex Society for Archaeology & History

Dear Mr Corder-Birch 

Southend Historic Environment Record and Protection of Southend's Heritage 

Thank you for your letter dated 7th November 2016. 

The Council is aware of the Boroughs finite heritage resource both above and below ground and the requirement in the NPPF to maintain an up to date and publicly accessible Historic Environment Record (HER). The Southend HER is currently held at the museum with direct access also available to the Planning Officers through the database itself and through the GIS system. At present, over 500 sites are recorded in the HER. Where a site is close to an existing HER record or where it is considered to be located in an archaeologically sensitive location the Planning Department liaise with the Museum service regarding the appropriate response in terms of planning conditions. This has happened for a number of sites recently and is on-going. 

The HER is not yet online but it is publicly available at the Museum and many searches are undertaken each year. Requests are processed by the Council's Archaeology Curator at Southend Museum. Contact details for search requests can be found on the Heritage Gateway Website, below and on the Council's website.

Southend also benefits from an up-to-date historic environment policy as set out in the recently adopted Development Management Document, Policy DM5 'Southend-on-Sea's Historic Environment'. This policy seeks to protect all heritage designations including known and potential areas of archaeological interest. All applications where there are issues relating to historic or archaeological interest are considered against the Policy and the advice in the NPPF. 

Yours sincerely

PETER GERAGHTY 

DIRECTOR OF PLANNING & TRANSPORT 

Civic Centre : Victoria Avenue : Southend-on-Sea : Essex SS2 6ER 

Customer Service Centre . 01702 215000 www.southend.gov.uk