Northampton Heritage Impact Assessment

Northampton Heritage Impact Assessment

On behalf of the Council, Iceni’s Heritage & Townscape team undertook the Heritage Impact Assessments for four of their crucial Site Allocations.

The allocated sites include highly complex Sites such as Northampton Railway Station within sensitive heritage assets such as the Registered Battlefield of Northampton 1460, Scheduled Ancient Monuments of Northampton Castle and Saxon Palace Complex.

The team took a design-led approach to balance the Council’s aspirations of growth on these specific sites whilst ensuring that heritage assets were conserved as per their duty to discharge statutory requirements.

To assist the Council to promote a positive growth strategy, Iceni highlighted the possible scale of the impact based on the allocation, keeping in mind the changing contexts of many of the heritage assets. Recognising that change itself cannot be considered as ‘harm’ and impact could be adverse or beneficial, Iceni advised on how the impact could be positive by providing elementary parameters for design and layout that complements the established grain, settlement pattern and character, while making a positive contribution to the significance of the assets.