IHBC NewsBlogs

IHBC’s next online Council, exclusive to all IHBC members, will take place on 8 October, chaired by IHBC President Rebecca Thompson and featuring CPD ‘Heritage skills and the CITB’s response’, by Nicola Duncan-Finn.

The Institute of Historic Building Conservation (IHBC) has warmly welcomed the approval from the Privy Council Office (PCO) for the submission of a Petition for Charter following its review of our Memorandum.

The IHBC has issued a new form to help ensure sector events with IHBC CPD values can be considered for inclusion in our free IHBC ‘Events Calendar’, with submissions required at least 2 weeks before the end any month to allow for any inclusion in the IHBC’s CPD Circular.

The IHBC’s celebrated annual Gus Astley Student Award will now close on 3o September 2025, so if you have relevant coursework from ANY UK taught course – under-graduate or post-graduate, completed by 30 September 2024 OR 30 September 2025 – just submit it online and on time to have a chance to receive a cash prize at the IHBC’s Annual School in Newcastle in June 2026, on ‘Adaptive Re-use’.

The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) publishes Indicator Data: Each year, Heritage Counts collates datasets about a range of indicators that provide useful insights into the state of the historic environment.

IHBC’s heritage business register HESPR – our Historic Environment Service Providers Recognition quality assurance scheme for heritage services – emails members weekly ‘News and Tender Alerts’, and this week features the Global Construction Review (GCR) on ‘Moving a 713-tonne church 5km…!

A farmer in Co Antrim has been fined £2,000 for unauthorised works to a scheduled monument which has existed for more than 1,000 years.

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Historic England has awarded £72,533 in grant funding, which, together with match funding from Thundridge Old Church Action Group (TOCAG) and the Diocese of St Albans, will enable essential works for the Old Church of St Mary and All Saints in Thundridge, Hertfordshire.

Thirteen Isle of Man landmarks — including former Victorian railway stations and the buildings where Manx laws are made — are being considered for special protection.

Designing Buildings Wiki(DBW) publishes the ‘Procurement in construction: Knowledge hub’.

In an essay titled Reorganisation, local government and the future of English Devolution, Localis argues that the establishment of unitary authorities in two-tier areas covering half-a-million residents could see councillor numbers drop from roughly 12,000 to 1,200.

A lack of succession planning could leave smaller charities facing a ‘crisis’ as senior leaders step down amid today’s highly pressurised operating environment, a consultancy has warned.

Frontier Economics and BMG Research were commissioned by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) to undertake an evaluation of the Towns Fund. This report sets out emerging, indicative process and impact findings from the first 7 case studies undertaken as part of the evaluation

Dutch companies MVRDV and Zecc Architecten have been selected to design a renovation of the  St. Francis of Assisi Church in Heerlen, south east Netherlands, into a public swimming pool called ‘Holy Water’.