The sector-wide annual ‘Heritage Counts’ review, prepared by English Heritage on behalf of the heritage sector, has revealed substantial evidence to confirm that Heritage groups provide a strong voice for local communities, while an online checklist has been launched to provide advice and guidance to groups
The review reports:
The historic environment is the Big Society in action, helping to build communities and giving people a real investment in the past, present and future of where they live and work. Every year 450,000 people get involved in their local historic environment through volunteering, around five million are members of heritage organisations, and one in six adults have donated to heritage causes.
This year’s Heritage Counts report, prepared by English Heritage on behalf of the heritage sector, shows how individuals, private businesses, local groups and national heritage organisations are working with the public sector to provide a voice for local communities and to promote the understanding and care of our heritage, as well as securing the future of historic buildings and places themselves. Despite this success more help is needed to give communities greater influence and support them in looking after our heritage, an issue which is particularly important with the rise of Localism and reductions in historic environment staff at Local Authorities. To assist them, English Heritage, on behalf of the Historic Environment Forum, has produced an online guide on how local groups can widen and strengthen community involvement in heritage issues . Next year a nationwide road show will take place, where groups will be helped to do more, and invited to discuss the issues that are important to them and to introduce the guide to them.
Heritage Counts draws on new research from The Heritage Alliance and Civic Voice [see key statistics outlined below] to demonstrate the scale and breadth of the activities that heritage and community organisations and individual historic places are involved in.
Findings showed heritage organisations provide invaluable support to local people, and civic societies are well placed to represent community views to local authorities and others. As the influence people have over the shape of their local area is set to increase through the Localism Bill, particularly important will be the advice and guidance on planning to communities that heritage organisations can offer. 85% of civic societies currently respond to planning applications and just under half (46%) of The Heritage Alliance members provide advice on planning issues.
Examples of projects the historic environment are involved in include, Peterborough Civic Society working with Peterborough City Council and parish councils to prepare a revised list of Buildings of Local Importance (BLI) for the district. Prepared by volunteers, the BLI will be used in the local development plan and will help safeguard important buildings. In the North West, British Waterways, along with V (the National Young Volunteers Service), The Waterways Trust and Bank of America, are working with 900 16-25 year olds to teach them new skills whilst conserving and promoting the region’s historic waterways.
Research also showed that involvement in heritage can be beneficial to individuals and communities; the National Trust, in partnership with Devon Family Learning, ran a programme called “Dads on the Farm” on the Trust’s Killerton Estate. The project has seen children, fathers and grandfathers all linked to one school, come together to learn more about the conservation and management of the countryside in their local area. Many of the men involved continue to be involved in the school community. Whilst the congregation of Empingham Methodist church, a historic building in a small village in Rutland, provide the venue for a weekly satellite Post Office, proving very popular with the local community.
Heritage organisations are positive about their future role within the Big Society. An overwhelming majority of The Heritage Alliance members (89%) said the Big Society is relevant to their organisation, with more than eight in ten (82%) expecting to maintain or increase the number of projects which help deliver the government objectives related to it.
Despite all the good work being carried out up and down the country, more can be done to strengthen the role of the historic environment in civil society. Research shows that there are many barriers to ongoing community involvement in heritage; bureaucracy, poor communication and uncertainty over a group’s aims all have an effect. To support local heritage groups in strengthening their local communities, English Heritage has funded a checklist full of advice and information which local groups can work through to come up with solutions to help them increase and diversify membership in their local area. The checklist provides guidance to groups on how to raise profile and image, increase the number of active volunteers, attract younger members, improve relationships with councils and learn more from other groups through networking.
Baroness Andrews, Chair of English Heritage, said: ‘Heritage Counts shows people care passionately about the place they live, and what makes it different and special. We want to make heritage expertise everyone’s expertise and that means we will be helping people and groups up and down the country, to protect and enhance their local, historic places. Local communities are the best and most effective advocates for our heritage – in its many forms – and English Heritage is there, alongside them, in their ambitions to care for the future.’
As in previous years, Heritage Counts also outlines key changes to the historic environment over the last year. It has been a good year for heritage tourism. There has been a rise in visitor figures (at least 50.4m visits to heritage sites in 2010) and strengthening membership figures (3.7m National Trust members, 758,000 English Heritage members, 32,000 Historic Houses Association Friends) and Heritage Open Days enjoyed 2.2 million visitors this year.
At the same time, though, there are though ongoing significant concerns about the capacity of local historic environment services, in the past year there has been an overall reduction of 11.9% of historic environment members of staff in England, with a reduction of 13.5% for conservation officers and 8.9% for archaeological officers is therefore of great concern.
For Heritage Counts see: LINK
For case studies see: LINK
For the on-line check-lists see: LINK
EH News: LINK
