Environmental Objectives indicators for municipal development plans regulations – a study of indicator systems for monitoring the implementation of Interim Target 2 within the Environmental Objective “A Good Built Environment

The purpose of this study is to propose and formulate quantitative indicators to help measure an aspect of the Environmental Objectives in Swedish legislation: “A Good Built Environment, Interim Target 2.” The governmental bill 2004/05:150 suggests changes to Interim Target 2: By 2010 built environments of cultural heritage value will be identified and placed under long-term sustainable management. Following the revised formulation regarding sustainable management, indicators should be formulated to measure the fulfilment of sustainable management of built environments of cultural heritage value. An important part of management takes place at the municipal level of planning, where detailed development plans include regulations to protect built environments of substantial cultural heritage value. As a result, this study is focusing upon the regulatory function of the Swedish Planning and Building Act in respect to the built environments of cultural heritage value. This study is formulating four quantitative indicators. Their ability to assess the quality of long-term management is put to test through a case study conducted in the region of Västmanland in 2005. In the case study, the indicators are applied to 11 detailed development plans and 25 individual building permits. The result of this study confirms the feasibility of the method. A chain link between the indicators can be deduced, thus all indicators should be used. Applying only one of them may give misleading results. The study also shows that reporting and comparing the indicators’ value as an average is preferable