How we designate Protected Historic Places

Historic Environment Scotland is responsible for designating sites and places at the national level.  

These national designations are:  

• Scheduled monuments  

• Listed buildings  

• Inventory of gardens and designed landscapes  

• Inventory of historic battlefields  

We also provide advice to the Scottish Government about historic marine protected areas, and the Scottish Ministers decide whether to designate. 

Our 2025 Strategy sets out our long-term direction and priorities, and informs how we allocate our resources. 

Our overall aim is to deliver a high quality, transparent and professional service.  You can find out about our regulatory and advisory services in our Regulatory Framework.

You can search for listed buildings on trove.scot, a platform which brings together the collections held by Historic Environment Scotland. 

For more information on designation decisions relating to Protected Historic Places search the Historic Environment Portal.

Go to trove.scot

Go to the Historic Environment Portal

You can ask us to consider a building, site or place for designation as a Protected Historic Place or ask us to review an existing designation. You can do this by completing our Designation Request form.

All requests must be made using the form. These are published on the Historic Environment Portal and/or Trove and will include your name and address unless you opt out. When you submit a designation request, you will receive an automatic email acknowledgement. Once submitted a request cannot be withdrawn. 

You can also ask us to consider a request for a Certificate of Intention Not to List (COINTL) using the same form.

We handle hundreds of requests every year. These range from simple updates to designation records and minor corrections to boundaries or mapping, to the review of large sites with multiple buildings or structures. Cases are often complex involving extensive research, site inspection, engagement and consultation.  

When you ask us to consider a site or place for a new designation, or to review a designation, we will let you know how we intend to proceed with it. Our role is to decide on whether a site or place meets the criteria for designation and whether existing designations meet the necessary requirements to aid decision making about possible change.  

While we will consider every request, we will not treat each request in the same way.  We will decide based on our priorities below whether there is a need for a detailed designation review and if so what priority that review will be given. 

You can read more about our criteria and how we make decisions in our Designation Policy and Selection Guidance.

We assess each designation request individually and will decide on their priority based on the following factors:  

• The potential impacts of development on the site or place, the level of change and the timescales involved  

• Whether undesignated sites and places are unoccupied and/or deemed to be at risk of loss or damage 

• The interests of communities or individuals in the site or place  

• If the site or place is already designated, whether the existing record provides sufficient information to aid decision-making  

• Whether our initial review suggests a designation meets the criteria.

We will consider undesignated sites at risk to be the highest priority for review. Existing designated sites that have inadequate records and which are affected by development proposals are also a high priority. We will take any information we have about the timings of the proposals into account. 

Where our initial review shows that a designation is adequate for the purposes of decision–making in planning and development, we will not carry out detailed reviews of a site.  In this circumstance, we recommend that you seek advice on development proposals from planning authorities.  

We will not prioritise requests to make certain types of changes to existing designations.  This includes, for example, requests to change the category of a listing or minor updates to historical information.  Our focus will be on updating records where we think they are not adequate to inform decisions. 

Some sites may be considered for recording and/or further research in the first instance or for a thematic designation project. These types of requests may take longer to complete, and we will let you know if this is the case. 

We ask that you let us know if circumstances affecting the site under review change so we can reconsider the priority for review. 

Our preferred method of communication is by email. We aim to respond to general telephone, email and postal queries within 10 working days.

When you submit a designation request (either for new designation or a review of an existing designation) using our form, you will receive an automatic email acknowledgement. We may ask you for more information before we can consider your request further.  

We will contact you again within 3 months either to tell you the outcome of your request or to tell you how we intend to handle your request if it has not been concluded in that time. 

Our overall aim is to complete individual designation requests within 9 months, but some cases may take longer depending on the individual circumstance (where detailed assessment and public consultation is required which normally applies to proposals for new designations and substantial or complex changes to existing designations). 

If we think that a building, site or place is of interest, or that an existing designation does not meet the criteria, we will consult on a proposal to add, amend or remove a site from the lists.

We publish these consultations on our Historic Environment Portal and welcome comments from anybody with an interest. We will normally consult directly with the planning authority and with the owners and occupiers about our proposals.

If our decision is not to designate, or when we decide that the exiting designation is adequate, we do not consult but will notify those involved of our decision.

The aim of our consultations is to gather information about the cultural significance of the building, site or place, about any relevant development proposals on the site and about the purpose and implications of designation.

The consultation period is usually 21 days. For more complex sites or larger projects this stage can take longer.  You can read more about our approach in our Designation Policy and Selection Guidance. 

Once we reach a decision we notify the planning authority,  owners and occupiers about new designations or changes to existing designations.    

Certain designation decisions can be appealed to Scottish Ministers. These are decisions to designate listed buildings and scheduled monuments, or to amend existing listed building and scheduled monument designations. Appeals are determined by the Planning and Environmental Appeals Division (DPEA).  

More information about appeals can be found on the DPEA website and in our Designation Policy and Selection Guidance.

We welcome feedback about our service. Please let us know what you think. We use this information to help improve what we do. 

If you still don’t like a decision we’ve taken about a site our place after further enquiries, you can make a complaint. 

A Certificate of Intention Not to List (COINTL) is a legal guarantee that the building or buildings named in it will not be legally listed during the five years from the date on which the Certificate is granted.

It aims to provide certainty for owners and developers considering works to buildings. The principle of the COINTL process is to consider whether a building is of special architectural or historic interest at an early stage of development proposals. Anyone can apply for a certificate whether or not they own the building.

Find out more about COINTLs

You can follow designation cases by checking our Historic Environment Portal and using the Case ID (e.g. 300065300) or by contacting us by email or by telephone. 

Telephone: 0131 668 8914 
Email: designations@hes.scot

Go to the Historic Environment Portal