First session of the World Heritage APPG

November 11, 2025 Published by Alex McCoskrie

The first briefing session for the newly formed WH APPG was held on Nov 5th 2025 in 1, Parliament St, Westminster. Its theme was on planning. It went well with 20 attending, including Wera Hobhouse MP (City of Bath WHS), Liz Saville Roberts MP (The Slate Landscape of NW Wales WHS), Shaun Davies MP (Ironbridge Gorge WHS), Jayne Kirkham MP (Cornish Mining WHS) and Rachael Maskell MP (City of York Tentative List Site). The session also welcomed a number of observers including Phil Foxwood (DCMS), Alexandra Warr (Historic England) and Matt Rabagliati (UKNC).

The session was chaired by Jonathan Davies MP (Derwent Valley Mills WHS) with support from his Senior Parliamentary Assistant Oliver Bennathan. It is hoped that further MPs with World Heritage Sites in their constituencies and Peers with interest in World Heritage will attend future WH APPG meetings. There are over 70 MPs and Peers representing World Heritage Sites across the UK.

At this inaugural session, three short introductory presentations were given by external speakers:

  • Chris Blandford, WHUK President gave an overview plus highlighted key planning issues
  • Lizzie Glithero-West, Chief Exec of the Heritage Alliance spoke on getting heritage into Government missions and on the opportunity still there for influencing forthcoming NPPF changes
  • Alfie Robinson, heritage specialist spoke on issues underlying UK planning system

The follow up discussion focused on the particular local development impact problems of each World Heritage Site. It was evident that there is still a need for the MPs to better understand the underlying issues that create these problems.

Looking ahead, Chris Blandford will prepare a World Heritage APPG Briefing Document which will be issued digitally and in hard copy prior to and at future briefing sessions. This allows new attendees to get up to speed ahead of the session and future meetings to focus on hearing from external speakers and experts.

The next session of the WH APPG will be on Wednesday 17th December and will have the theme ‘World Heritage & Tourism’. It is hoped that external speakers will include representatives from the English Lake District WHS, VisitBritain, and the National Trust. The first MP debate on World Heritage will be on Tuesday 18th November at 9.30am, in Westminster Hall and will focus on the 80th Anniversary of UNESCO.