Scheduled Monuments.
Nationally important archaeological sites. Any works affecting a scheduled monument need Scheduled Monument Consent from the Secretary of State — separate from, and additional to, planning permission.
- Schemes with no effect on the monument or setting
- Sensitive interpretation and access
- Conservation and stabilisation works
- Archaeological investigation by agreement
- Development within the setting
- Groundworks near buried archaeology
- Changes to views of the monument
- Works requiring SMC as well as permission
- Direct physical harm to the monument
- Loss of buried archaeological deposits
- Substantial harm to significance
- Unconsented works (a criminal offence)
Scheduled monuments are nationally important archaeological sites protected under the 1979 Act. Works to a scheduled monument require Scheduled Monument Consent from the Secretary of State (advised by Historic England) — a separate regime from planning permission, and one with no general permitted-development equivalent.
In planning terms a scheduled monument is a designated heritage asset of the highest significance, so NPPF requires great weight to its conservation and treats substantial harm or loss as wholly exceptional. Setting matters too: development around a monument can require assessment even where it does not touch the asset itself.
A scheduled monument carries the highest heritage significance and its own consent regime. Physical impact is effectively off the table — the work is understanding significance and protecting both the asset and its setting.
Where groundworks are unavoidable nearby, early evaluation and a strategy of preservation in situ — agreed with the archaeology adviser — is what separates a consentable scheme from a refused one.
How schemes actually fare inside this designation — approval rates, appeal survival, which authorities apply it hardest — needs the designation joined to the decision record. That join isn’t built, so those figures aren’t published here. We won’t estimate them.
The Atlas maps scheduled monuments against INSPIRE parcels. Check whether your site or its setting affects nationally important archaeology.