A significant new study for the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) and English Heritage (EH) gives key statistics on the value of repair and maintenance (R&M) work, underpinning and endorsing existing work carried out for the National Heritage Training group (NHTG).
The report, dated March 2012, is entitled ‘The Economic Impact of Maintaining and Repairing Historic Buildings in England’. It concludes that ‘in terms of national income, construction output attributable to built heritage is estimated to contribute in the order of £12 billion to UK GDP.’
The authors write:
Our key findings may be summarised as follows:
• The built heritage construction sector is a highly significant contributor within the context of the wider national economy, directly supporting in the order of 180,000 FTE jobs. Including indirect and induced effects, it is estimated that the scale of economic impact attributable to the built heritage construction sector in England supports approaching 500,000 FTE jobs.
• In terms of contribution to national income, England’s built heritage construction sector is estimated to account for some £11 billion in GDP.
• Broken down by region, our analysis suggests that the scale of the built heritage construction is most marked in the three regions that make up the Greater South East – namely, the South East, London and the East of England.
• Combining the results of our impact analysis for England with revised figures developed under separate analyses for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, indicates a composite value for the UK’s built heritage construction sector equivalent to almost £12.5 billion in respect of GDP.
…It follows that establishing economic impacts should be seen as a critical step towards greater acceptance and understanding of the need for regular investment and maintenance, and in order to more fully realise the potential value of the nation’s heritage assets. While the greater part of investment in the historic environment comes from private sector businesses and individuals, it should be recognised that public funding – whether directly or in the form of grants – often serves as a critical enabler or catalyst to wider investment in the historic environment, and as a mechanism for inducing private sector resources and further unlocking the scale of economic benefits embodied in built heritage assets.
The built heritage construction sector accounts for a major share of the total economic impact associated with heritage buildings and structures, with expenditure directed at the repair and maintenance of this fabric in turn making a very significant contribution to sustaining major elements of England’s construction sector – a wider industry which continues to face notably challenging conditions. Moreover, and as the National Heritage Training Group and others have persuasively argued, if this investment were to decrease, then there is a real possibility that a component share of these higher value-added construction jobs, and associated traditional building craft skills, could be at risk.
See the research at: LINK
For other new reasecrh updates at HLF see: LINK
