Written evidence submitted by the
Glasgow City Heritage Trust
As per what is set out in the Terms of Reference, the Glasgow City Heritage Trust (GCHT) response to the Culture, Media and Sport Committee’s Call for Evidence is as follows:
An introduction to Glasgow City Heritage Trust. We are:
• A Limited company registered with Company House in March 2007 - Scottish company no: SC318618
• A Charity registered with the Office of Scottish Charity Regulator in September 2007 - Scottish charity no: SC038640
• A Conservation Body registered with Scottish Government in November 2007
• One of Scotland’s seven City Heritage Trusts.
Our Purpose
GCHT is committed to ensuring Glasgow’s heritage is protected, preserved and promoted for future generations, in order to leave the city in a better place than when we found it.
Our Mission
To be the go-to resource for heritage information and funding in Glasgow, boosting civic pride and inspiring Glaswegians to value, celebrate, and pro-actively care for and maintain their historic environment.
Our Vision
To see a happier, more vibrant city, filled with proud, engaged communities, where
Glasgow’s heritage is understood, valued, and well cared for.
Our Aims and Objectives are:
• To distribute grants to assist in the repair, enhancement and conservation of the city's historic architecture
• To provide help and advice to owners of historic buildings
• To promote debate about Glasgow’s built environment through a range of events and collaborations
• To support education projects and traditional skills training relating to Glasgow’s architecture and built environment.
Between 2007-2024 GCHT has distributed the following funding
• £14.3 million invested in repairing 582 of Glasgow’s historic buildings.
• £1.32 million on projects to help people understand, look after and celebrate Glasgow’s heritage.
• £30,000 invested annually in traditional skills training
• We organised 202 public lectures, 75 lunchtime training sessions and 38 exhibitions
• We’ve offered grants to more than 1,850 people and organisations to help them look after their historic properties
• For every £1 we spend on building repairs, another £8 is invested by others
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?
Firstly, the unequal VAT playing field that puts the repair and retrofit of heritage assets at a competitive disadvantage and means that owners of traditional buildings have to find an extra 20% of monies to cover the necessary repair and maintenance costs needed to ensure the longevity of these buildings. You cannot retrofit a building which is not wind and water tight. Therefore, the existing traditional fabric must be repaired first. Having to find the additional VAT for doing so acts as a fiscal drag on the progress of this. If the playing field was more equal that would help open up the market.
Secondly, how to achieve Net Zero in traditional buildings so as to take advantage of their embodied carbon and ensure the traditional building is fit for the future. This field is fraught with uncertainty and there is a risk we could find ourselves in what the Urban Theorist Jane Jacobs referred to as a “Cataclysmic Money” scenario. That is where a significant amount of funding is flung as a problem within a limited space of time thus not allowing solutions to be tested and mature. We only have one shot to get the retrofitting of our traditional buildings right. As the spray-foam insulation scandal shows, it is expensive to have to remove and then correct misguided and unproven technologies which risk unfavourably altering the performance and longevity of our traditional buildings stock. This also matters in terms of perception, if, having seen the potential pitfalls, it makes owners of our traditional buildings more risk averse and less likely to invest in retrofit.
Third, the lack of traditional skills needed to repair our traditional building stock. The lack of capacity is only going to get worse when the conservation repairs to the Palace of Westminster and the Glasgow School of Art start. Both projects will act like a sponge absorbing the available traditional skills practitioners across both the UK and Scotland. We will either have to train new practitioners (which will take time) or accept the delay in progressing repairs to much of our existing traditional building stock.
• What interventions are needed to prevent the managed decline of heritage assets on publicly-owned land?
We suggest two interventions.
Firstly, that Government bodies including Local Authorities should proactively place their historic assets at the heart of their strategic planning processes so that these buildings are both maintained and so the authority ensures they have a sustainable use extending into the future. By this we mean that there should be a default option that the historic asset should be given priority when considering any new use or service.
To illustrate this, the new Parkhead Health and Social Care Hub - which is a collaboration involving NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde (NHSGGC), Glasgow City Health and Social Care Partnership (HSCP) - is a welcome investment in a community hub in Glasgow’s East End. Nevertheless, while it is being lauded as Scotland’s largest net-zero carbon health and social care centre, and for setting a new benchmark for sustainability and community regeneration, it’s creation also means the closure of the existing Parkhead Library which is being moved into the new facility.
While the new investment in this neighbourhood suffering multiple deprivations is very welcome, it means the ‘B’ listed library of 1904-6 by architect James Robert Rhind, which includes a separate Public Baths and Washhouse range, and is a great example of Glasgow’s municipal socialism, is now redundant.
Fortunately, the handsome library complex is being marketed for a new use but it might have been better if it had instead been placed at the heart of any new proposals rather than being replaced by them.
Secondly, if an historic asset becomes redundant then rather than allowing it to slip into decline thereby inflicting unnecessary blight on the surrounding area, the authority should look to proactively market the heritage asset for a new owner or use. It should do this by first engaging a consultant team led by a conservation accredited professional to carry out and consult on an options appraisal on the building to ascertain the best possible use and then draw up a development brief on that basis. The historic asset can then be marketed to either a community led charitable vehicle or a developer. The key thing is to ensure the new owner has the means and capacity to deliver a long term sustainable use within the historic asset.
• What can the Government do to make it easier for communities or local businesses to take ownership of historic buildings?
The Government could look at something along the lines of Glasgow City Council’s People Make Glasgow Communities scheme. This aims to empower communities to have a much greater influence over the decisions that affect their local community, and meet the changing needs of neighbourhoods. The idea is provide communities with the opportunity to become more involved in the venues and services that community relies on. This can include historic buildings. The model looks at retaining Local Authority ownership but with a community vehicle taking on a long lease which will thus let the community access grant funding programmes the Local Authority is prohibited from accessing. Services can then be delivered by the community who will have a greater idea of their own needs and how to focus them.
2. How effective are the current funding and finance models for built heritage?
To give you an idea of how effective (or not) the current funding and finance models for built heritage are I would point to the situation in Glasgow with regards to how Glasgow City Heritage Trust (GCHT) try to bring the city’s pre1919 tenements back into better condition.
To give you an idea of the scale of the problem, Glasgow, has circa 77,200 residential dwellings within pre-1919 buildings. 61,300 are flats in traditional tenements, 6,800 flats are in conversions of townhouses and 9,100 are in villas and bungalows.
The Scottish Housing Condition Survey of 2016 estimated that 67% of all pre 1919 stock is in critical disrepair with 5% requiring extensive repair.
In 2019, the Built Environment Forum Scotland estimate that 60% of these flats needed urgent repairs worth an estimated £3 billion thus creating a time sensitive maintenance crisis.
NB These costs just bring the tenements back into a wind and watertight condition so don’t cover the subsequent costs for retrofitting our pre1919 tenement stock to address climate change and fuel poverty.
GCHT is a grant funding body. We disperse approximately £750K per year in grant funds per year. Looking at both the combined annual budgets for GCHT Historic Environment Grants scheme and Glasgow City Council’s Private Sector Housing Tenement scheme, we estimate that based on these grant funds alone it would take around four centuries to bring all of Glasgow’s pre1919 tenements back into a wind and watertight condition.
Obviously, we are aware that this may give rise to negative perceptions. Therefore, to tackle this GCHT uses every single grant funded tenement repair project as a case study to educate Glaswegians into how to better look after their tenements. The idea is to use each project to help build the city’s capacity to do this.
Nevertheless, we are also conscious that we need to look at a more scalable financial model for ensuring our tenements are in better condition.
• What should long-term public funding for the sector look like?
The bulk of GCHT’s grant funding for building repairs is directed to tenements across Glasgow which are either listed buildings or are in a conservation area.
As we are a charity we can only fund external conservation repairs the public can see. Typically, we fund up to 40% of grant eligible costs. In the past, as the behest of our funders, this has been capped at £100,000 per tenement; however, there has been more flexibility over this of late.
Though we are supposed to target tenements in the lowest two deciles of the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD) this can be difficult to achieve in practice as the people who live in these areas are unlikely to be able to afford the remaining 60% of the repair costs.
In certain circumstances, where there is a good case in terms of outcomes to the investment from the public purse, or where the building is in a very deprived area, our grant intervention rate can rise up to 75% but even then, the remaining 25% cost for the repairs can be prohibitive for owners.
Therefore, what we would like to explore is a different funding model based on low interest repayable loans we can offer to tenement owners in more affluent neighbourhoods who may be asset rich but cash poor. These loans would be reimbursed over time but would allow us to maintain a separate grant funding pot which could be carefully targeted towards tenements located within neighbourhoods in the lowest two deciles of the SIMD.
3. What role does built heritage play in the regeneration of local areas and in contributing to economic growth and community identity?
We firmly believe that Glasgow’s built heritage plays a central role in the regeneration of local areas and in contributing to economic growth and community identity.
We believe that Glasgow was badly damaged - and not just physically but psychologically too - during the era of the Comprehensive Development Area from the 1950s - 70s when roughly a quarter of the Victorian, Edwardian and Interwar city was demolished.
Ignoring the many commercial and industrial demolitions, during that time Glasgow demolished 103,674 homes or 67% of the total demolitions for Scotland as a whole.
This caused significant severance and social dislocation the repercussions of which are still felt half a century later. This destruction of Glasgow’s Communities and Places gave rise to what Professor Dr Mindy Thompson Fullilove terms “Root Shock” – the sense of loss of ‘home’ and consequent dislocation which results when entire neighbourhoods are swept away.
Therefore, for us, retaining what built heritage survives and using that as an armature or anchor on which to coalesce new neighbourhoods and communities is key to the regeneration of the city and the healing of this rupture.
To illustrate this you need only look at now self regenerating parts of Glasgow such as Finnieston. Here the small grain, scale and relatively low rent of the shop units, lining the ground floors to the mid-Victorian tenements, has allowed people to take risks. This has resulted in many fashionable bars, cafes, restaurants and niche shops appearing along Argyle Street as it passes through Finnieston which is now regarded as one of the most fashionable neighbourhoods in Scotland and the UK.
• How can heritage buildings be supported to increase energy efficiency and contribute to the Government’s net zero targets?
Listed buildings and indeed all traditionally constructed or heritage buildings are key to us reaching Net Zero. As Carl Elefante, former president of the American Institute of Architects, said, 'The greenest building is the one that already exists’. This is reference to the embodied carbon within these buildings most of which have already paid for themselves.
Nevertheless, we can look at how we sensitively retrofit these buildings with sympathetic technologies which will help reduce their running costs and associated carbon footprints by improving their thermal performance and energy efficiency.
This may include:
Adding insulation in a way that does not damage or obscure historic features is key. This can be done using careful located internal or occasionally external wall or roof insulation using breathable materials (hemp, cellulose, and sheep’s wool) which aren’t going to trap moisture within the historic building fabric.
Introducing double glazing or adding secondary glazing for windows to improve thermal performance without altering the exterior appearance of the building.
Careful use of air tightness but in such a way that the building remains properly ventilated to avoid damaging the historic building fabric.
The main support to assist this is education and capacity building amongst historic building owners so that they know how to look after their building better and can find easily legible information to help them improve the thermal efficiency of their building.
For instance, simple things like ensuring the building’s gutters and rainwater goods aren’t clogged but are running free. This will help stop water backing up into the historic building fabric. A water saturated stone wall head to a tenement will act like a sponge pulling heat out of the building thus reducing it’s thermal performance. This is a major issue in Glasgow particularly in neighbourhoods located in areas which scoring lowly in the SIMD and suffer from fuel poverty.
Therefore, the ability to connect with building owners and educate them is critical. GCHT runs ‘Looking Up and Looking Out for Tenement’ workshops at intervals throughout the year. These workshops and walks target tenement owners in Glasgow’s inner city tenement neighbourhoods.
We go out to these places and communities to teach owners how to become ‘building detectives’ by spotting the problem issues so they know how to point them out to property factors and to engage the conservation accredited professionals who may be able to assist them in getting their tenement into better condition.
We also point out successful case studies while explaining how traditionally constructed buildings work and how to sensitively repair them. The logical next stop in this process is to look at retrofitting of the tenements so we can help improve their thermal performance.
4. What are the financial, regulatory and practical barriers to preserving built heritage?
Financial Barriers include both the uneven VAT playing field with regards to repair and maintenance and the complexity of navigating VAT including an understanding how how the three different rates can apply i.e. standard (20%), reduced (5%) and zero-rated (0%) and what triggers them. In addition, some services may be exempt or outside the scope of VAT. A simplification of this might help level the VAT playing field but it would have to be done as part of a suite of measures and in a way that supports investment in traditional construction and skills.
Regulatory barriers include Energy Performance Criteria or EPC ratings which are geared more to modern than traditional construction thus making an EPC for a traditional building, which operates on a completely different construction methodology look poor. Providing a new set of energy performance criteria specifically for heritage buildings, which take into account their historical and architectural value along with construction technologies, would ensure a realistic and achievable standard.
The Practical barriers include the lack of traditional skill practitioners with the current generation of skilled practitioners who are aging and retiring and not enough traditional skills courses to produce a new generation of practitioners.
• What policy changes are needed to make restoring historic buildings easier and less expensive?
Heritage buildings could be allowed more flexible building regulations, where they could meet energy efficiency standards in ways that don’t compromise their historical value. There may need to be exceptions to standard building codes or allowances for innovative solutions that respect the original fabric of the building.
The government could provide a mix of grants or low-interest loans for retrofitting heritage buildings, specifically aimed at sustainable upgrades that enhance energy efficiency. These could be specifically targeted at owners based on the SIMD.
Clear guidance on what energy efficiency improvements are permissible for heritage buildings can help owners navigate the complexity of balancing preservation with sustainability. This could be further enhanced by providing case studies of successful retrofits.
5. What policies would ensure the UK workforce has the right skills to maintain our heritage assets?
A National Heritage Skills Framework could outline the key skills and qualifications needed to work in heritage conservation, including areas like stone masonry, carpentry, plastering, traditional building techniques, and historic architecture. This framework could be integrated into further education curricula, vocational training courses, and apprenticeships.
Educational institutions, such as Universities and Colleges, could partner with heritage bodies like Historic Environment Scotland to develop specialised degree programs and short courses that focus on the conservation of historic buildings similar to the courses currently offered by ‘The Engine Shed’ in Stirling.
Promotion of Government incentives could encourage businesses in the heritage sector to offer apprenticeships or traineeships in traditional building skills. Funding for apprenticeships could be made more accessible, with a focus on key heritage trades.
Provide funding and incentives for skills development. If small heritage contractors are struggling with training costs, government grants or subsidies could help them provide training to their staff in traditional skills and new techniques, such as retrofitting heritage buildings with energy-efficient solutions.
Alternatively, offer tax breaks or financial incentives to firms that invest in heritage skill training would encourage more businesses to invest in upskilling their workforce.
Working with the Chartered Institute of Building (CIOB), the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS), the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), the Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland (RIAS), and the Institute of Historic Building Conservation (IHBC)on professional accreditations and certificates which recognise the expertise those working in the conservation of our historic built environment.
This could include mandatory Continuing Professional Development (CPD) programs for professionals working in heritage conservation to ensure they are up to date with new materials, techniques, and regulations.
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