IHBC’s Chair James Caird attended the 2018 Heritage Day, led by England’s heritage link body, The Heritage Alliance (THA), and has offered NewsBlog readers an update on his day.
James Caird summarised the day as follows:
- Loyd Grossman was retiring as Chair after 9 years in the post so there was a bit of a celebratory feel to the day, while he gave his valedictory address which was as uplifting as it was entertaining (as usual).
- Michael Ellis, England’s Minister for Arts, Heritage and Tourism… focussed on heritage expertise as an aspect of British ‘soft power’ in the world his opening speech.
- Hilary McGrady, the new Director General of the National Trust spoke about her vision for widening the scope of the NT and shared heritage in general, while I took the opportunity over lunch to tell her, briefly, about our last Annual School in hosted by our Northern Ireland Branch, where she is from. Arising from something she said I also revived the old issue of the need for a body to be a holder (and upholder) of heritage covenants. This seemed to me to align with her interest in widening the scope of the NT beyond the big houses… Richard Bate was also there and reminded me of his work on this 10 or so years ago. It does seem to me that with the decline of both direct funding and regulation as building blocks of conservation, the future must lie in new methodologies.
- Duncan Wilson, Historic England’s CE, then launched Heritage Counts 2018… a good effort again this year, and Adala Leeson – Head of Social and Economic Research and Insight at Historic England, and other contributors were rightly thanked for a their good work. The fact that the Treasury has a very narrow view of the economic value of heritage continues to vex them as it does us all. He had a few examples of HE sponsored high street improvements [but] I didn’t get a chance to ask him whether any work had been done to evaluate whether businesses improved when their premises shouted ‘quality’ as opposed to ‘tackiness’. One aspect that may underline this is the increasing occupation of heritage high street property, proportionately, by ‘branded retailers’ who typically have a better handle on the value of their image than many independents do, or can afford.
- Ben Cowell, CE of Historic Houses, and new Chair of Heritage 2020 – which now has funding at least for another year – thanked Mike Heyworth, Heritage 2020’s outgoing Chair… and I took the opportunity over lunch also to thank him personally on our behalf…
- Then there were the ‘Heritage Hero Awards’, including a special one to Loyd Grossman.
- After lunch came the usual half dozen or so short presentations, including Karl Carter of the Federation of Historic Vehicle Clubs covering their new Traiblazer apprenticeship scheme for historic vehicle restoration, which offers a ‘core and options’ format of the sort the IHBC has called for – so far unsuccessfully – within the generic Heritage Advisor apprenticeships as currently proposed.
- Then came the THA’s AGM, at which the IHBC saw 2 Full Members elected to its Board – Peter Aiers and Heather Jermy.
- There is to be an increase in membership fees, phased in over a period for existing members, necessitated by a fall in project income.
For more on the day see theheritagealliance.org.uk
View the Minister’s speech
