Do you actually need a Heritage Impact Assessment?
Most applicants either over-supply (commissioning a full HIA when a one-page Heritage Statement would have validated) or under-supply (filing nothing when the LPA will return the application unvalidated). Answer four questions and the scoping gate below will route you, cite the controlling clause and quote the 2026 fee band.
A Heritage Impact Assessment is a structured report submitted with a planning or listed-building consent application that identifies the significance of the heritage asset affected, describes the proposed works, evaluates the resulting harm against NPPF ¶200 and NPPF ¶208, and proposes mitigation. Where the works are minor and the asset is Grade II, a shorter Statement of Heritage Significance per HEAN 12 usually suffices.
The four 2026 fee bands
UK fees for heritage planning submissions in 2026 fall into four clean bands. The scoping gate above highlights the band that matches the answers given.
Sources: RIBA Fee Calculator (Apr 2026), CIfA practitioner salary scales (Apr 2026), Historic England Enhanced Advisory Services price list (effective 1 April 2026, £127/hour ex VAT), and Arbtech published fixed-fee Heritage Statement (from £695 plus VAT).
How significance and harm decide which document is required
The NPPF asks three sequential questions: how significant is the asset, what level of harm will the works cause, and is that harm justified by public benefit. The greater the significance and the greater the harm, the more detailed the assessment expected. Significance maps to five steps:
Listing grades shown the Historic England way
The colour convention below mirrors Historic England's listing register and is used consistently across the site, so a glance tells you which grade you are dealing with.
The 2023 Listed Building Consent rule change
The Town and Country Planning (Listed Buildings) (Amendment) Regulations 2023 (SI 2023/1024) require every LBC application to include a description of the significance affected, proportionate to its importance. Practically, this codified what most LPAs already requested, but it means a wholly absent Heritage Statement is now grounds for refusal at validation, not just a request for further information.
How long an HIA actually takes
Two to three weeks of elapsed time from instruction is typical for a moderate Grade II case. A one-page Heritage Statement can be drafted inside a week. A Grade I case with site visit, archaeology DBA and pre-application meetings is better budgeted at six to ten weeks. Conservation-accredited authors are in short supply and add lead-time in Q1 and Q3 (peak submission seasons).