Strategic Overview and Management Strategy
Durham City strategic overview
We have created a Strategic Context Document to support the creation of all seven Conservation Areas that make up the special architectural and historic interest of Durham City.
The document explains the city's historic, landscape and townscape importance, the Conservation Area Management Plan (CAMP) aims, objectives and aspirations, and the challenges and opportunities within the city.
The Strategic Context Document provides an understanding of the city as a whole, the challenges it faces and the potential opportunities for its regeneration and improvement. The document explains:
- how the CAMP process works and why it has been used for Durham City
- how it fits into local and national planning policy
- why we are proposing seven smaller conservation areas
- the 10 overall themes behind the management aims and actions
The Management Strategy
This supporting document makes a series of recommendations, aims and actions around the 10 themes in the Strategic Context Document. It:
- addresses key challenges
- provides general planning guidance, design advice for specific disused historic buildings, detracting gap sites, extensions and shop fronts, lighting, and road/pavement improvement
- supports the planning framework
- can support funding opportunities
The aim of these recommendations is to set out a realistic and deliverable framework for the positive and proactive management of future change in the conservation areas, in line with national and local planning policies and other relevant documents.
The Management Strategy also looks at the existing Article 4 properties. An Article 4 direction affects a person's automatic rights to do some types of development work to their property and means they may have to apply for planning permission first.
Phases
Updated Strategic Overview and Management Strategy
Having now reviewed all of the feedback we will further consult on the final version of the Strategic Overview and Management Strategy alongside the updated boundaries and character appraisals documents in Spring 2026.
As a result of this consultation the Strategic Overview Document has been re-structured to first set out the special interest of Durham City, with a flow chart added to show the process flowing from identifying the conservation areas special interest through to the actions and outcomes that can be achieved from managing the areas appropriately.
The section relating to Durham Castle and Cathedral World Heritage Site has been reduced in length with text moved to the Peninsula and Riverbanks appraisal so that the overview places more emphasis on the setting of the conservation areas as a group.
Further, some text has been edited out to reduce the documents length (for clarity and to avoid duplication), maps have been updated, and a summary of the public consultation has been added as an appendix.
Regarding the Management Strategy the number of key themes has been reduced for clarity, it has been colour coded for clearer navigation, the document has been edited and reduced in length, the aims and actions better organised, and potential outcome summary boxes and an overall action plan have been included.