The Peterlee Relational Test Vehicle (PRTV) is an ongoing civic and archival programme associated with the collection, organisation and review of material relating to Peterlee and its surrounding districts.
References to the programme begin appearing within planning documents, infrastructural studies and associated records during the early 1970s, alongside a range of technological, industrial and civic initiatives connected to the New Town’s development.
Although the programme has changed form across successive decades, its underlying concerns remain consistent:
to document, observe and retain material relating to how Peterlee has organised, projected and interpreted itself through periods of development, disruption and adaptation.
The archive currently contains administrative records, planning material, photographic surveys, speculative reconstructions, infrastructural studies, public submissions and unresolved documents associated with the wider civic environment.
No single account contained within the archive is treated as definitive.