CONTEXT 180 : JUNE 2024 45 CHRIS BLANDFORD Developing the UK world heritage tentative list Now that the UK has in part complied with Unesco’s call for nomination reduction and addressing gaps in the world heritage list, the government must support the existing sites. The government announced the new UK tentative list for world heritage sites in 2023, following an assessment and selection process undertaken in 2022/2023. Context 176 (June 2023), whose theme was world heritage sites, included an overview of the UK world heritage site designation process, reflections on the role of our world-class industrial heritage and several views from some of our existing world heritage sites. This article explores in more detail the international and national implications of the Unesco tentative list process and how this has influenced the recent selection of sites for the revised UK tentative list. As a ‘state party’ or signatory to the Unesco World Heritage Convention1, the UK is committed to its obligations and the related Operational Guidelines² which are the framework for the implementation of the convention. State parties are invited to submit a tentative list of potential world heritage sites. Only sites on the approved national tentative list can be progressed by the state party for nomination and inscription on to the world heritage list. This is restricted to one a year for each state party. State parties are advised that they should review their tentative lists, as a minimum, every ten years. Unesco guidance The detailed 2020 Unesco Guidance on Developing and Revising World Heritage Tentative Lists³ acknowledges that each state party will need to choose its particular method of review and assessment. However, it emphasises the need for the tentative list selection process to be open and clear, both nationally and locally. The guidance is comprehensive and provides advice on how to differentiate between the national value of a country’s heritage inventory (both cultural and natural) and the potential global significance derived from a screening of this national inventory. In selecting sites for the tentative list, the guidance also encourages state parties to establish a preliminary or long list of sites that combines a top-down and bottom-up approach. The top-down review should identify sites with potential ‘outstanding universal value’, derived from a broad screening of the state party national inventories of heritage resources. Gracehill Moravian Church, Northern Ireland, is part of a transnational nomination of sites exemplifying the church’s ideas. 1 World Heritage Convention 1972 https://whc.unesco. org/en/convention 2 Operational Guidelines for the Implementation the World Heritage Convention, Unesco World Heritage Centre, 2021 3 Guidance on Developing and Revising World Heritage Tentative Lists, UNESCO/ICOMOS/ IUCN/ICCROM, 2020
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