Extra care is taken to protect Tamworth’s heritage which means additional planning rules may apply to buildings or areas of land with special architectural or historical significance.
If you are planning work on a heritage asset or building, you may need planning permission and/or additional consents. Changing a listed building without the required consent is a criminal offence, so it’s important to check what the rules are first.
More information is included in the sections below, and you can also contact our planning team for help and advice. Email: planningadmin@tamworth.gov.uk.
Nationally listed buildings
Listed buildings are officially designated as being of national importance by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, together with Historic England.
There are 175 listed buildings throughout Tamworth.
You can read all about listed buildings on the Historic England website, where you can also check if a property is listed, find out what permissions might be needed to make any changes and nominate a building to be listed.
There is also some helpful advice about how to maintain and improve a heritage asset.
Conservation areas
A conservation area is an area which we (Tamworth Borough Council) have defined as having special architectural and historic interest. There are seven in total and additional controls are in place when it comes to the submission and consideration of planning applications in these areas.
Read more about Tamworth’s conservation areas here.
Locally listed buildings
We have designated a further 91 buildings in Tamworth as being of local historic or architectural interest. Known as ‘local listing’ this can be applied to buildings, structures, monuments, parks or gardens.
Find out more about locally listed buildings here.
Scheduled monuments
There are a number of scheduled monuments throughout Tamworth which are also classed as listed buildings. The list can be found and searched on the Historic England website.
Any work to a scheduled monument may require special consent from Historic England.
More advice on scheduled monuments can be sought from Staffordshire County Council.
Heritage at risk register
Historic England maintains an annual health-check of England’s most valued historic places and those most at risk of being lost forever. There is currently one site at risk in Tamworth, which is the Deanery Wall, Lower Gungate.
You can view the register here.
Conservation grants
We operate a grant scheme to help owners of listed and historic buildings meet some of the costs involved in looking after them. The current scheme focuses on properties in the town centre. For more information on this scheme please get in touch us at planningadmin@tamworth.gov.uk.