(Re)Forming Spaces to Places: Heritage Ecosystem Mapping of an Urban Setting

This project is the next step on from our 2025 project Heritage Ecosystems Impact Assessment - a tool which seeks to put the concept of ‘heritage ecosystems’ into practice by capturing the deep relationships of people to places in rural communities. The 2025 pilot project suggested significant potential to adjust this methodology for urban contexts. 

For this exciting new project we will work closely with Alyssa Walton, London Borough of Havering’s Heritage Projects Officer, to develop a Heritage Ecosystem Mapping (HEM) approach in the borough. 

The need in Havering has become more critical as the borough recently became the first borough to elect Reform. The transfer from Essex to Greater London in 1965 was cited by Reform voters as initiating a loss of place-identity and uncertainty about Havering's heritage. 

Due to these factors, its rapidly growing population, combination of built environment and green spaces, and active cultural scene, Havering is an ideal urban context to apply HEM. In Havering HEM will be used to assess the relationships communities have with their borough and together map existing heritage ecosystems to inform projected policy and planning.

Existing Heritage Impact Assessments primarily focus on listed historical assets and scheduled monuments while Environmental Impact Assessments recognise component parts of ‘place’ such as conservation areas. Yet, neither approach accounts for the co-constitutive relationship between people and places. The resulting gap in knowledge and visibility can lead to people feeling alienated from a rapidly changing space and overlooked. 

Our hope is that developing a HEM toolkit in Havering will grow the impact of the research on which it is based and expand the CHRC’s activity into the realm of urban policy.