Managing heritage in evolving Part 5 NSW projects

 Heritage: Top tips to manage heritage in evolving projects

Most heritage delays on Part 5 developments are avoidable and tend to follow a familiar pattern. What is often described as a “late heritage issue” is rarely the result of the initial heritage assessment itself.

More commonly, delays arise when early advice or assessments continue to be relied upon as projects evolve, without a clear mechanism to ensure those assessments and the associated Part 5 determinations continue to reflect the works being delivered.

Where Aboriginal or historical heritage is involved, resolving this misalignment is rarely quick and can have disproportionate impacts on program, cost, and delivery certainty.

Here are a few lessons to help ensure that REFs in 2026 progress well and avoid unnecessary delays.

Top tips to protect your Part 5 project timeline, as well as historical and cultural heritage values.

1. Do not skip a constraints analysis.

   Early decisions set the approval ceiling.

   Preliminary due diligence is essential to identify key potential environmental, including heritage, impacts early. Failure to incorporate this into design processes increases the risk that projects trigger EIS requirements unnecessarily.

   Ensure the preliminary investigations extend beyond the initial project area to allow for inevitable changes to project design. Early assessments often adapt a broader, regional consideration.

   Cumulative impacts, including those associated with temporary and enabling works, should be considered from the outset.

2. Initiate Aboriginal engagement early to inform design.

   Trust, once lost, is difficult to rebuild.

   While early engagement with Aboriginal Traditional Owners is generally considered best practise, it is not a requirement for due diligence assessment or preliminary investigations. Even when being undertaken for formal impact assessments, processes established under the National Parks and Wildlife Regulations 2019 can result in engagement occurring several weeks, or even months, into a project.

   Few things will undermine trust with Aboriginal Traditional Owners more than being among the last to be informed of works proposed on their Country.

   Regardless of formal requirements, best practice requires early engagement with Traditional Owners to inform design, allow time to develop relationships and trust, and provide an opportunity to robustly explore issues and concerns and have them addressed.

   When these steps are undertaken, project change and uncertainty can be managed far more effectively.

3. Assess broadly early, then refine deliberately.

   Flexibility early reduces risk later.

   Rather than locking a constrained disturbance footprint too early, undertake a high-level assessment across a broader envelope during due diligence, preliminary and early impact assessment.

   It is typically only once substantive on-Country works are required that costs escalate, and a smaller disturbance footprint becomes desirable.

   Identifying key heritage constraints and sensitivities early allows this information to actively guide design and avoid higher-risk areas as scope is refined, including temporary works such as  access tracks.

   Prior to this, consultation and research can be more wide-ranging, maximising avoidance opportunities and allowing late design changes to be integrated more easily.

   As the project becomes more defined, the disturbance envelope can be narrowed, reducing fieldwork costs associated and allowing change to be managed more tightly.

4. Respond quickly if scope changes
   Change is inevitable. Delay is not.

   Early engagement with a heritage specialist, in combination with accessible documentation, provides the fastest and safest pathway to avoid significant delays, or worse, compliance action.

   A targeted heritage check when scope changes occur should reassess the cumulative effect of those changes against the impacts originally assessed in the REF, rather than considering incremental changes in isolation.

Avoiding heritage delays is not about eliminating scope change or over-assessing early. It is about recognising that projects evolve and ensuring that approval decisions evolve with them.

From an engagement perspective, ensure relationships and trust are established early to enable such change to be managed without issue.  

As Part 5 projects become more complex and delivery timeframes tighter, early heritage integration is no longer optional. It is a core delivery strategy.

For practical, delivery-focused heritage advice to support your Part 5 projects, reach out to our team.

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Connect with Alan Alan Williams Aboriginal Cultural Heritage   awilliams@emmconsulting.com.au     LinkedIn	Connect with Emilia Emilia Zambri Historical Heritage ezambri@emmconsulting.com.au     LinkedIn