How it works

How HeritageAI works

Four stages, one project. Each stage produces a document and feeds the next, so you never start again.

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Stage 1 · READY?

Preliminary Planning and Heritage Appraisal (PPHA)

Know the building before you visit it.

See a finished PPHA →

What you do: Enter the address and the proposed works in the platform. Add the list entry number if you have it.
What the system does: Queries the named registers — the National Heritage List for England (NHLE), the council’s planning records, historic mapping, Heritage Gateway, the Historic Environment Record and MAGIC — checks the listing, and drafts the appraisal from what they return.
What you get: The PPHA: designations, likely consents, the policies that apply, the risks, and what to look for on site. Every PPHA includes a video call with an RIBA Chartered Architect.
Price: £195, paid on download. Run at no charge on the 30-minute onboarding call.
Who checks it: You. It is a first read to plan from, not professional advice, and every line shows its source.

Stage 2 · READ…

Statement of Heritage Significance (SoHS)

Work out what makes the building significant.

See a finished SoHS →

What you do: Visit site with the PPHA in hand. Upload your photographs, survey drawings and location plan, and answer the questions the system asks about what you saw.
What the system does: Compiles planning history, historic maps and building-age evidence, then prompts you with the questions that make the building legible — the ones most architects were never taught to ask.
What you get: A Statement of Heritage Significance written to Historic England Advice Note 12 and the August 2026 NPPF.
Price: £500, paid on download.
Who checks it: You make the judgement calls and sign it. The system checks your uploaded drawings against the statement as it is generated.

Stage 3 · …RESPOND

Heritage Impact Assessment (HIA)

Test the design against that significance.

See a finished HIA →

What you do: Develop the proposals against the SoHS and upload the design, round by round.
What the system does: Assesses each element of the design against the significance already established, flags harm and mitigation, and records each round.
What you get: A Heritage Impact Assessment. Drafts are at no cost; one price per project covers every round.
Price: £500, paid on download.
Who checks it: You, as author. SOANE Architects is a call away for a difficult element or a case officer’s question.

Stage 4 · RESOLVE!

Planning & Heritage Statement (P&HS)

Pull it together for submission.

See a finished P&HS →

What you do: Confirm the final scheme and the application type.
What the system does: Compiles the SoHS, the HIA and the scope of works into one statement, cross-referring rather than repeating.
What you get: The Planning & Heritage Statement (P&HS), which includes the Design and Access Statement (DAS).
Price: £500, paid on download.
Who checks it: You. On the SOANE route, it is checked against your authority’s validation checklist before submission.

Two ways to work

You produce it

£500 per document, paid on download.

You get full access to the system from the onboarding call. Run the research, upload your existing plans and location plan, build the Statement of Heritage Significance, review the evidence, make the judgement calls. The system checks your drawings against the statement as it’s generated, so the pack is consistent before you submit. Download when you’re ready.

Responsibility. You are the author. You check it, you sign it, it’s your document. Confirm with your broker that your professional indemnity insurance covers it, as you would for any application you submit.

SOANE produces it

Price on application.

SOANE Architects visits the site, carries out the research and produces the document as your appointed heritage consultant, against a written brief and scope agreed with you. Before anything is submitted it is checked against your authority’s validation checklist, and where it helps we correspond directly with the case officer and obtain pre-application advice. You mark it up and bill your client as you would any sub-consultant.

Responsibility. SOANE Architects is the author, under its own professional appointment and its own insurance. Its name appears on the document.

Help when you need it

The system is built for you to run. When a building needs more, the same account brings in SOANE Architects.

A video call with an RIBA Chartered Architect comes with every PPHA.
A site visit by SOANE Architects, nationwide, for £500 — arranged on a 30-minute video call with Giles Paul Shorter.
SOANE Architects can produce any document as your appointed heritage consultant, priced on application.

Thirty minutes with the founder.

Bring a live project. We’ll run the Preliminary Planning and Heritage Appraisal (PPHA) on it while you watch, at no charge on the call, so you can judge the output on a building you know. If it’s useful, you leave the call with a login.

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