Written evidence submitted by the
Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings
1. What are the most significant challenges facing owners and operators of built heritage assets, and how are they affecting what those sites can offer?
The Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings (SPAB) is the UK’s oldest building conservation charity and since its foundation in 1877 has championed regular and timely maintenance of historic buildings. We continue this campaigning work through National Maintenance Week each November, and we have run Lottery-supported initiatives such as Faith in Maintenance and the Maintenance Cooperatives Project. Simple maintenance tasks, such as gutter clearance and window care, help prolong a building’s life and avoid large repair bills. Although we understand that hard-pressed public bodies may seek to reduce regular investment in the assets they own, evidence consistently shows that this is a false economy. It often lies at the root of long-term decline and dereliction and underinvestment in one building can affect the wider locality’s wellbeing and economic prospects.
While SPAB’s very successful free technical advice helpline (partially supported by Historic England) is available to public authorities as well as private, charitable and community owners, it cannot fully meet the demand. Continued under-investment in heritage buildings owned by public bodies, and/or their divesting of such buildings to other groups, will only increase that demand. Further assistance to expand the service is needed if the demand is to be met.
a) Continue public funding and support for particularly important heritage sites that are of considerable value to the community but need a one-off investment to bridge the ‘conservation deficit’. Grants and loans from the Architectural Heritage Fund, Historic England, National Lottery Heritage fund are all vital in supporting otherwise unviable schemes.
b) Provide VAT relief on repair works for historic buildings being repaired and re-purposed by community groups.
c) Provide additional support to organisations that can provide communities with specialist advice on delivering successful community heritage projects. SPAB, the Heritage Trust Network and a few other similar organisations are in a position to be able to deliver that advice effectively and speedily, but they need additional funding from Government (perhaps via Historic England) to be able to do that.
The SPAB’s ‘Old House Project’ https://www.spab.org.uk/old-house-project offers a successful model for community groups seeking to acquire and repair disused historic structures. The projects embrace sustainability as well as building repair and has added to the housing stock.
d) Incentivise local authorities to make much greater use of the existing Repairs and Urgent Works powers, as these can support acquisition and transfer of historic structures into new, beneficial ownership (which is often community-focussed). Simpler mechanisms, or more support for the use of existing powers, would help unlock many cases and promote beneficial re-use.
2. How effective are the current funding and finance models for built heritage?
a) Some funding models work fairly well, with vital support offered by bodies such as Historic England, the National Lottery Heritage Fund and the Architectural Heritage Fund - but the total funds available are very limited and more could be done to ensure that funding applications, especially in really urgent cases, are determined speedily.
b) SPAB is hugely grateful to Historic England for providing vital funding across a range of projects both for SPAB, other heritage charities, places of worship and community groups managing heritage assets. However, their total support has diminished in real terms over recent years. The even greater support that the Heritage Lottery has provided to heritage sites and groups since its inception has undoubtedly prevented the loss of many heritage sites and has been a huge encouragement to community groups wanting to take on, or improve the management of, historic buildings.
c) Grant-giving bodies in England have worked hard to create straightforward application processes, proportionate information requirements in applications and speedy decisions but there will always be space for some further improvement.
d) SPAB has around 6000 members and many more supporters who all share a passion for heritage. The organisation is able to offer very small grants from its own charitable funds for emergency, protective work to a few historic buildings such as wind or water mills where other grants sources are not available. These restricted funds come from legacies, philanthropic organisations and member support.
e) Zero VAT on repair works for listed buildings would ensure owners, whether public, charitable, or private could carry out more repair work and better safeguard their heritage assets.
a) No real-terms reduction in support.
b) More certainty about funding over more than one year (where appropriate). Short term government settlements for funding bodies such as Historic England hinder sustainable planning for organisations they support.
c) Active and sustained engagement of funding bodies with SPAB, other charities, community groups and other relevant owners. This will ensure that the sector can discuss priorities, plan the management of heritage for the medium to long term and identify areas of heritage that are coming under noticeably greater threat, such as places of worship,
3. What role does built heritage play in the regeneration of local areas and in contributing to economic growth and community identity?
The value of heritage to regeneration and growth has been convincingly demonstrated in many studies over a period of more than 25 years. Historic England is a world leader in demonstrating robustly the positive economic and community benefits that heritage investment brings. These findings are summarised in Heritage Counts https://historicengland.org.uk/research/heritage-counts/.
Expert heritage advice within the planning system, provided by local authority conservation staff, national agencies, and National Amenity Societies including the SPAB, results in speedy, well-informed decisions within the planning system. Key players in the heritage sector, including SPAB, recognise and promote a positive approach to the management of heritage and acknowledge that heritage never ‘stands still’. Heritage is a vital focal point for communities of all types and locations. The revitalisation of struggling and deprived communities through the re-use of historic former industrial buildings is a well-established route to economic growth and stronger communities
SPAB firmly supports energy efficiency and carbon reduction in historic buildings. Improvement is entirely achievable, but there is much misunderstanding about the energy performance of old building fabric. Poorly considered insulation can do more harm than good and accelerate decay in the long term. SPAB research into building performance has improved understanding, but has been entirely carried out with limited charitable funds. Government support for further research could help avoid waste and failure through misinformed public schemes of retrofit and upgrading.
4. What are the financial, regulatory and practical barriers to preserving built heritage?
Support for regular maintenance helps to reduce the need for and cost of major works. Repair is generally more cost-effective and environmentally friendly than wholesale replacement and helps promote local crafts skills and economic activity.
SPAB supports small-scale local production of traditional building materials. This helps historic buildings and local economic activity but obstacles often exist, including restrictions on small-scale mineral extraction.
Expert guidance from organisations such as the SPAB helps public bodies to make well-informed decisions that are cost effective.
VAT on historic building repairs remains a major disincentive to carry out beneficial work.
5. What policies would ensure the UK workforce has the right skills to maintain our heritage assets?
The SPAB Scholarship and Fellowship training programmes https://www.spab.org.uk/news/new-group-craftspeople-and-architects-embark-our-unique-heritage-training-programmes are delivered mostly with charitable funds but we are very grateful for additional support from Historic England. They produce expert heritage professionals – but only a small number each year. More public resource, to sit alongside the charitable donations we continue to seek, would allow such programmes to grow.
For wider impact we would encourage much more focus, at college-level, on the traditional craft skills and the techniques needed for repair and sympathetic retrofitting work to the historic building stock. SPAB’s efforts to reach college-level trainees have been hindered by the focus of syllabuses on new-build training. A larger skills pool is needed for work to existing, traditionally-constructed buildings and this would support the economy and growth.