From Preservation to Compensation: Managing Historic Environment Loss in Planning Policy and Practice

Journal article, 2025

When large urban planning projects cause physical loss of historic environments, public actors face the challenge of mediating the twin goals of conservation and urban planning. Grounded in an understanding of conservation as the dynamic management of change, the paper analyses the responses to historic environment loss in policy and practice. The analysis is based on two diverse cases–the West Link train tunnel in Gothenburg, Sweden and the Mumbai Metro in Mumbai, India. Drawing on interviews with public actors and official documents, findings show a spectrum of conservation responses in practice. From least to most change-oriented, these are: avoid damage; minimise damage; restore historic environment; design for visual context; compensate by strengthening; and compensate by creating. ‘Preservation,‘ dominant in the Mumbai Metro, was expressed by avoiding and minimising damage to the historic environment and preserving its visual integrity. ‘Compensation,’ mobilised in the West Link, was a creative response that involved conveying historical information about the affected sites through design. Both preservation and compensation emerged from their individual planning contexts and the constraints within them. The findings inform policymakers and practitioners on the possibilities for change-oriented conservation in practice, including compensation as a dynamic alternative for managing historic environment loss.