Written evidence submitted by Scotland’s Churches Trust

Culture, Media & Sport Committee – Protecting built heritage written evidence.
Provided by Dr DJ Johnston-Smith, on behalf of Scotland’s Churches Trust.

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?

Owners and operators of built heritage assets currently face numerous substantive challenges that can adversely impact their ability to run these beloved historic sites. For the country’s religious built heritage, many of these pressures can be doubly so.

Primary among these are:

• Climate Change – The impact on our historic buildings of increasingly frequent adverse weather episodes caused by climate is only now being fully understood. Few owners have sufficient resources to meet the rising cost of appropriate mitigation measures to adapt to these new conditions
• VAT on repair work – The continuing uncertainty over the Listed Places of Worship Grant Scheme has had a considerable negative impact on this particular category of historic building. The introduction of a permanent grant scheme to reclaim VAT payments on repairs to these (and other) listed buildings would greatly reduce the burden on the owners of some of the nation’s most important and historic buildings and ensure that these cherished landmarks are passed on in good condition to future generations.
• General financial sustainability – Costs of staff, general maintenance and other repairs are rising considerably, at the same time as donations and regular income are reducing for many. Heritage charities often find that they are competing with each other for scarce grant funding. This can often be inconsistent and rarely covers day-to-day running or pro-active maintenance costs.
• Skill shortages – A decline in traditional conservation skills, such as lime-plastering, stonemasonry, blacksmithing, stained glass production, etc as well as other, more standard, maintenance skills, such as electricians, plumbers and builders, is causing costs to rise dramatically and a failure to attend to necessary repairs in a timely fashion, particularly in rural areas where tradespeople can be harder to procure.
• Societal change and relevance – Public appreciation for different historic building categories changes generation by generation, sometimes causing significant heritage losses that are much lamented years or decades later. As the country secularises this issue has become particularly intense for the owner of historic surplus church buildings. Local communities across the British Isles are currently grappling with a general desire to keep or maintain religious buildings that are now no longer needed for their original function.

If the UK Government is keen to make a difference to the country’s historic building stock on publicly owned land it could provide ring-fenced funding for the maintenance of these buildings. Grant conditions could encourage state agencies to explore more flexible reuse strategies that involve their local communities in more meaningful and tangible ways. Such funding could also foster and encourage heritage-led investment initiatives that prioritise stable collaborative partnerships between state, local authority or institutional asset owners, the private sector and local communities.
 

2. How effective are the current funding and finance models for built heritage?

Changes to the VAT system to encourage repairs and grant incentives that help towards the initial running costs of these assets would be of great assistance in changing the current situation.

Simplifying the community right-to-buy legislation and application process for financial support in this regard, across these islands, would also be welcome. Funding of the initial agreed purchase price is also not enough. A proportion of the available funding needs to be diverted to transitionary and start-up support for the fledgling community groups that have embarked upon a heritage asset purchase.

We are also witnessing a considerable loss of formerly publicly accessible built heritage assets in the most deprived neighbourhoods and in some rural areas. These places often lack the requisite available volunteers with the spare capacity to run a heritage asset in addition to their jobs or other responsibilities. Consequently, as state agencies and other institutions, such as religious denominations or built heritage charities, dispose of their properties, many worthwhile opportunities to pass buildings into community hands are being lost. More weighting needs to be given to supporting efforts to save heritage assets in precarious localities, so that they may become community assets in the future.

3. What role does built heritage play in the regeneration of local areas and in contributing to economic growth and community identity?

Numerous academic studies have now proven beyond any doubt the social, economic and wellbeing value of a cherished and well-maintained built environment to residents and visitors alike.

In the simplest economic terms, attractive historic buildings attract lots of visitors, who will spend their disposable income in local businesses. Dig a little deeper and we find that local communities with cherished anchor buildings in their streets and neighbourhoods, be they churches, castles, pubs, homes, castles or anything in between, also tend to be more socially connected, economically stable and generally content.

These happier communities, with clear ideas of collective and spatial identity, tend to be magnets that attract further investment in local homes, businesses and public spaces, in turn delivering further positive economic and wellbeing growth. Dramatic improvements can flow from the simple repair and rehabilitation of a single historic asset, moving it from a building at risk to a catalyst for positive behavioural, economic and physical change in a matter of months.

4. What are the financial, regulatory and practical barriers to preserving built heritage?

The removal of VAT on building repairs cost would be transformative. More repair work would be carried out, bringing empty, run-down or dilapidated buildings back to life and reducing the carbon footprint of the nation in the process. The greenest building is one that is already standing!

Removal of VAT on listed building repairs or a permanent grant system that allows owners to reclaim VAT once repair work is complete would ensure many more vital repairs are carried out in a timely fashion that ensure that small jobs do not become costly larger ones.

5. What policies would ensure the UK workforce has the right skills to maintain our heritage assets?

Increasing the amount of repair and rehabilitation of the nation’s historic building stock would undoubtedly have a positive impact on the general population of skilled craftspeople. Reducing or removing VAT on these repairs would undoubtedly stimulate this growth. More regular work would encourage those skilled individuals that may be nearing retirement to take on apprentices and other craftspeople to learn their trades and support their activities.

Selected grant investment should also be conditional on the delivery of more training and apprenticeships with every government grant, to ensure that this skilled workforce continues to grow.