Pilot survey starts for list of heritage buildings

Work has started on a pilot survey of traditional buildings in Birsay, as part of a project to compile a Local List of all important built structures across Orkney.

The creation of the Orkney Local List is aimed at cataloguing the county’s built heritage to ensure that this information is available to assist the planning process. The Local List policy has been in place since October 2011 with relevant buildings being surveyed, assessed and included in the Local List whenever planning applications are lodged which may affect them.

The pilot survey in Birsay will be mainly desk based and will pull together information from resources such as Historic Scotland and planning archives. However, the survey may in some cases also involve a small amount of fieldwork such as taking photographs of buildings and structures from the public road where no photographs exist at present.

The pilot survey will help the OIC  determine whether the wider Orkney Local List is best created “parish by parish” in the same way as the pilot, or simply through conducting surveys ‘as and when’ planning applications are lodged, as is current practice.

A full copy of the Orkney Local List guidance is available from www.orkney.gov.uk