Conservation Plans and the Development Process

Conservation plans have been promoted in the United Kingdom for more than a decade, but there is to date no research to establish whether they are working as intended. Anecdotal evidence suggests they are not, and the author, who has prepared many plans, argues that the fault lies to some extent with the way the current guidelines are written. These should, he argues, be based on a more complex understanding of the development process, and he illustrates this point by reference to specific plans that he has prepared for different kinds of client.