Monthly Archives: May 2016

The Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) has announced a third round of its Skills for the Future programme, which will offer grants of £100,000 to £750,000 for projects providing paid work-based training placements to meet a skills shortage in the heritage … Continue reading →

Delegation of responsibilities to the new Ministers in Wales includes both continuity and change, as Ken Skates takes the historic environment as Cabinet Secretary for Economy & Infrastructure, while planning comes under Lesley Griffiths,  as Cabinet Secretary for Environment & … Continue reading →

Built Environment Forum Scotland (BEFS) has offered its review ministerial appointments in Scotland following the First Minister’s announcement of her new Cabinet Secretaries for the 2016-17 sitting of the Scottish Parliament, as the historic environment remains with Fiona Hyslop within … Continue reading →

Historic England (HE) notes that, while the strong artistic and historic significance of Barbara Hepworth’s Epidauros II, an important rounded, pierced bronze sculpture overlooking the sea in her hometown, St. Ives, was recognised when it was listed in 1998, a … Continue reading →

Arts Council England, the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF), Nesta and DCMS are commissioning a crowdfunding platform to develop a match fund, to be hosted on a pre-existing platform, in order to experiment with match funding models in the arts and … Continue reading →

The Communities Secretary dismisses appeals for two solar farms, in Worcestershire and Essex, as neither demonstrated the very special circumstances needed to justify development in the green belts and would harm the landscape character, visual amenity and setting of Listed … Continue reading →

A Second World War underground wireless station in Norwich, which was part of a secret communications network set up in 1940 by Churchill in response to the increasing threat of German invasion, has been protected as a scheduled monument by … Continue reading →

A 25% discount is offered to IHBC members on any pre-order and post-publication on-line purchases of this much-needed guide by IHBC member Charles Mynors on the complex legal and practical processes to consider when carrying out works to churches, due … Continue reading →

Twenty-one new bills have been announced in the Queen’s Speech, on 18 May, including legislation to help simplify planning rules and support the government’s ambition to ‘deliver one million new homes, whilst protecting those areas that we value most including … Continue reading →

The National Heritage Training Group (NHTG) has been awarded £779,200 funding by the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) to provide high quality, work-based training and skills development opportunities to equip people for a career in the built heritage sector, with the … Continue reading →

IHBC members will be dismayed to learn that firefighters have again had to put out a major blaze which swept through a derelict listed building, on Scotland’s Buildings at Risk (BAR) register, this time Glasgow’s Scotway House, close to the … Continue reading →

Developers that knocked down a 1920s west London pub shortly before it was to be given listed status have been called ‘thugs and vandals’, with Maida Vale resident and community activist John Simmance offering the comments at a public inquiry … Continue reading →

Some of the measures in the Historic Environment (HE) (Wales) Act 2016 (‘the 2016 Act’) came into force on 21 May 2016, two months after the legislation received Royal Assent, including measures relating to Temporary Stop Notices, Urgent Works and … Continue reading →

A last minute hearing at the Court of Appeal considered an alternative solution to save the frontage of the Futurist Cinema, Lime Street, Liverpool, after scaffolding was taken down to make way for full demolition. SAVE writes in their press … Continue reading →

Writing in The Spectator, Jonathan Meades explores the subject of The Twentieth Century Society’s conference on 21 May 2016. Meades notes :   ‘It will, no doubt, soon be the turn of postmodern buildings to feel the rough buss of the … Continue reading →

Focused on traditional buildings and their energy efficient retrofit, the National Trust (NT) and the Federation of Master Builders (FMB) have teamed up with the Environment Study Centre to deliver specialist training across England and Wales, with funding from CITB, … Continue reading →

The Construction Industry Training Board (CITB) has launched a new fund to support employers investing in higher Trailblazer Apprenticeships. CITB writes: The Trailblazer Apprenticeship Fund, which opened yesterday, will offer grants to employers training apprentices at levels 4-7, right up … Continue reading →