Conservation values, the authorised heritage discourse and the conservation-planning assemblage

Abstract

The focus of this paper is the practice of conservation applied through the English planning system, termed conservation-planning. It argues that a distinct conservation-planning social entity has developed that may be described as an ‘assemblage’ and that the values and validated practice of conservation-planning are constructed as an authorised heritage discourse (AHD). Emphasis is placed upon the way that the AHD maybe mobilised by the conservation-planning assemblage in relation to other elite discourses, explored through the way that relationships have developed between the policy spheres of conservation-planning, regeneration and economic development. In doing so, it is argued conservation has successfully repositioned itself from being regarded as a barrier to development to being regarded as an active agent of change. Furthermore, the paper proposes that within the conservation-planning AHD we might detect sub-AHDs, organised around the short-hand labels of Conservation Principles, The Heritage Dividend and Constructive Conservation, each with a somewhat different rhetorical purpose. Through this analysis, we can better understand conservation-planning as a distinct heritage social entity and process. It shares values with other heritage activities but also has distinct differences, intimately related to its political relationship with other domains of urban management.