Abstract

As heritage is by definition a cultural construction, it is an aspect of a wider culture and thus heritage planning is a sub-division of cultural planning. Heritage can be seen as a resource, a process and an outcome and all three approaches, as they are used in spatial planning, will be considered here. The answer to the straightforward question, ‘can the past be used in planning for the present and future?’ is at one level self-evident. It is being done globally in the pursuit of many different planning objectives. The more interesting question is, ‘what is actually happening and is it what we intend to be happening’?