C O N T E X T 1 1 6 : S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 0 35 appreciation of detailed information about the local historic environment. This might be in order to guide new development sensitively or to inform proposals for enhancement of the local environment, so both could be carried out in a complementary and historically sympathetic manner. The delivery of a new town centre for Brierley Hill through the area action plan process clearly brought into sharp focus the need to consider such an appraisal here. At the issues and options stage of the area action plan it was acknowledged that to date there had been no detailed analysis of the historic character of Brierley Hill or of the various locally distinctive townscape areas and communities within it. Nor was there anything like comprehensive information about the location and relative significance of the individual heritage assets contributing to overall historic character. The statutory list of buildings of architectural or historic interest had been surveyed in 1976 and had not been reviewed since. The council’s own local list of buildings of historic interest had been compiled in 1996, based on patchy survey data. Particularly as regards the historic High Street, there had been no character appraisal work that could have provided information as to whether there was potential for conservation area designation. Similarly, there had been no comprehensive review of the archaeological potential of Brierley Hill, particularly from the point of view of industrial archaeology. It was suggested in the issues and options consultation document that it would not be possible to conserve or manage the historic environment resource in Brierley Hill effectively in the face of rapid change, without a much better level of knowledge. The consultation feedback to that document supported the undertaking of a Brierley Hill urban historic landscape characterisation study (UHLC). This was to all intents and purposes to be a local area character appraisal, as presaged in the historic environment supplementary planning document. A brief was drawn up by the historic environment team in consultation with policy planners, with a view to commissioning the work using budgets allocated to the production of the local development framework. Crucially in the latter regard the historic landscape characterisation study was required to be a spatially orientated document, using mapping as the main expression of its findings. This would make it directly comparable to and interoperable with the spatially oriented documentation being produced by others in connection with the area action plan, particularly urban designers. On this basis a consultant, the Conservation Studio, was appointed. It was charged with the detailed drilled-down characterisation of the whole of the area action plan area, and with carrying out a detailed conservation area character appraisal of the historic High Street and its environs. High Street Character Zone: spaces (Image: The Conservation Studio) Above: High Street Character Zone: buildings (Image:The Conservation Studio)
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