Historic brick tower with mullioned windows framed by a garden wall, climbing greenery and flowering border

11 — Heritage Advisory

Heritage Advisory Services

Independent heritage and conservation advice for owners, trustees, local authorities and design teams — helping historic buildings and their custodians navigate significance, consent and long-term stewardship.

What this covers

Not every heritage question is a structural design question. Owners, trustees and local authorities regularly need independent conservation advice — on significance, on strategy, on how to weigh competing priorities — before a specific engineering commission even begins.

Heritage significance advice

Independent input on a building or site's heritage significance, and how proposed change would affect it.

Conservation management planning

Structural and technical input to conservation management plans, supporting a building's long-term stewardship strategy.

Consent strategy

Advice on the likely consent pathway for a proposed change, and how to build the strongest possible evidenced case.

Trustee & committee advice

Ongoing technical advisory support to charitable trustees, fabric committees and amenity societies.

Advice that sits above a single commission

This service exists for the questions that come before — or alongside — a specific piece of engineering design work: whether a proposed change is likely to be supportable, how to sequence a wider conservation strategy, what a fabric committee should prioritise with a limited budget.

We bring the same Conservation Accredited (CARE) expertise to this advisory work as we do to hands-on engineering commissions, but with the independence to advise on strategy and priorities rather than just deliver a defined scope.

Local coverage

Heritage advisory services — conservation engineer, London & Kent

AEVUM provides independent heritage advisory services from our offices in London and Kent, serving projects across the UK and internationally, to owners, trustees and local authorities responsible for historic buildings and monuments. As a conservation engineer, we sit on a number of committees and charitable boards — including cathedral fabric advisory committees and heritage trusts — giving our advisory work a grounding in how conservation decisions are actually made and scrutinised.

Frequently asked questions

How is heritage advisory different from your engineering design work?

Advisory work typically sits at a strategic level — significance, consent pathway, long-term stewardship priorities — rather than delivering a specific structural design. It's often the step that precedes a defined engineering commission, or runs alongside one.

Do you advise trustees and committees, not just clients directly commissioning works?

Yes — our directors sit on a number of fabric advisory committees and charitable heritage boards themselves, and we regularly provide this kind of ongoing advisory support to trustees and committees managing historic assets.

Can you help assess whether a proposed change is likely to gain consent?

Yes, this is one of the most common reasons clients bring us in at an early, advisory stage — to test a proposal's likely consent pathway and build the evidenced case for it before committing to detailed design.

Discuss a heritage advisory requirement.

Discuss a project