and destruction is complex, and dates back to 1882. There have been many revisions since, and the UK government states that it remains committed to heritage protection legislation reform, even though the draft Heritage Protection Bill 2008, which proposed a single 'register' that included scheduled monuments and listed buildings, was abandoned to make room in the parliamentary legislative programme for measures to deal with the credit crunch.

The scheduling system has been criticised by some as being cumbersome. In England and Wales it