Planning for protection of the historic environment and archaeology is to be combined in a single planning policy statement which emphasises their important role in regeneration.
The draft PPS15: Planning for the Historic Environment is designed to replace both PPG15 on historic buildings and PPG16 on archaeology.
But it warns that heritage protection will not give blanket coverage in future.
"The new PPS envisages a proportionate response to change," it says.
"It makes clear that we should focus on what is significant in heritage terms about a place and not just protect all of it for its own sake."
In support of this it says the significance of each historic asset will have to be defined.
Comments are required by 30 October.
