Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport Written Evidence


Memorandum submitted by the National Trust

INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY OF RECOMMENDATIONS

  1.  The National Trust welcomes the opportunity to contribute to the House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee Inquiry into Protecting, preserving and making accessible our nation's heritage. It comes at a critical moment for the historic environment sector—a moment when we are engaging in major reform of the system of heritage protection, reviews of the National Lottery (from which the sector is a major beneficiary) and the forthcoming Government Comprehensive Spending Review. We do so against a backdrop of huge popular interest and support for history and heritage as well as growing pressure on limited fiscal investment in, and growing costs of, maintaining heritage assets people care so passionately about.

  2.  The Committee's inquiry is, therefore, a welcome opportunity to reinforce the central role the historic environment plays in defining our sense of identity and quality of life, to recognise the wider economic and social benefits that it provides and to challenge the misconception that, despite huge public interest in history and heritage, protection of the historic environment is a barrier to progress and unworthy of investment.

  3.  Our key points and recommendations are:

    —  whilst some progress has been made, the current public policy and funding framework fails to adequately reflect the contemporary public value of heritage or the scale of investment needed to care for the assets the wider benefits heritage provides are derived from;

    —  in particular, the current approach is in urgent need of reform to better reflect a bottom-up, people-focused approach to protecting heritage all around us (rather than a simple focus on the special and the rare) that is more responsive to the public as well as the expert view of what is important and why;

    —  the contemporary relevance of heritage and its contribution to the nation's quality of life need to be better understood and more effectively championed across Government—this includes the role of heritage in relation to regeneration, culture and national identity, education, volunteering, tourism, skills, local environmental quality as well as the importance of heritage for its own sake;

    —  addressing these weaknesses has the potential to create some meaningful opportunities to engage more people in understanding and taking positive action to participate in the management of the historic environment and that seizing such opportunities will deliver wider benefits for society as a whole;

    —  the forthcoming Heritage White Paper should be seen as an important mechanism to re-assert and establish role of historic environment across a range Government interests—delivering more than the legislative reforms necessary to implement the Heritage Protection Review;

    —  critical action is needed to reverse the recent decline in resources available for the maintenance of assets themselves—including through the forthcoming Government Comprehensive Spending Review and safeguarding the current levels of investment in heritage from the National Lottery;

    —  such fiscal and policy investment in the management of the historic environment needs to be accompanied by measures to equip the people in the sector with the skills and resources required to foster wider engagement—as well as in delivering the proposed heritage protection reforms; and

    —  in the short term, urgent action is needed to address some of the most pressing needs including:

—  more visible leadership and support for the historic environment across Government from the lead Department, DCMS;

—  embracing management approaches such as public value as a means to recognise and support the public benefits from heritage;

—  development of a range of indicators to measure progress and target resources;

—  establish a new national cultural forum to inform and oversee delivery the work of the DCMS on the culture agenda, including the historic environment;

—  development of a support package to ensure the delivery of the current DCMS Public Service Agreement target PSA3 on new audiences;

—  introduction of a range of measures (including a reduced rate of VAT and increased levels of investment in capital grants for heritage) which support the repair and maintenance of historic properties;

—  fully implementing the recommendations of the Goodison Review into support for retaining works of art and culture that might otherwise be sold abroad;

—  investment in a solution that properly addresses the current threats to the setting of the internationally significant site at Stonehenge;

—  investment in the local authority skills needed to deliver conservation services at a local level and in ensuring the availability of specific building conservation and craft skills;

—  a range of measure to encourage workforce diversification and create opportunities for career progression across the heritage sector.

—  supporting ways of managing historic properties for visitors which help to reduce the impact of rising traffic levels through, for example, Visitor Travel Plans; and

—  give official support to local means of identifying the importance and significance of places.

THE ROLE OF THE NATIONAL TRUST

  4.  The National Trust is Europe's largest conservation body with over 3.3 million members, 43,000 volunteers, an annual turnover of more than £300 million and a presence throughout England, Wales and Northern Ireland. We currently protect and manage on behalf of the nation over 600,000 acres of countryside and 600 miles of coastline together with a significant proportion of the country's designated sites and buildings of heritage significance. This includes six World Heritage Sites, over 6,000 listed buildings, 1,200 scheduled ancient monuments, 149 registered museums and 8% of registered historic parks and gardens.

  5.  Our property portfolio is hugely diverse ranging from some of the nation's most iconic and well-known sites—from Sutton Hoo to the great country houses of Hardwick Hall or Kingston Lacy. We also care for many of the more ordinary and everyday elements of our rich and diverse cultural heritage. This includes places like the Back to Backs in central Birmingham, the Workhouse in Southwell, Nottinghamshire, over 1,000 vernacular buildings, three lighthouses, a gold mine and the national lawn mower collection. As well as our houses, we look after an amazing collection of gardens and historic landscapes, like Stourhead or Sissinghurst, have fantastic works of art, from Titian to Turner, and a rich and diverse industrial archaeology, like the Stone Age Axe factories in the Lake District.

  6.  Our approach to conserving these assets is a creative, not static activity. We believe that ideas of historic significance constantly change—as each generation discovers fresh meaning and value through interacting with the historic environment around them. Listening and involving is therefore central to our work—helping us to understand and respond to changing views of significance and value. As some of our more recent acquisitions demonstrate (for example, Mendips—John Lennon's childhood home), this both informs what we look after as well as how we look after and interpret these assets. Our leaflet History and Place (copy enclosed) describes our approach in more detail.

THE ROLE OF THE HISTORIC ENVIRONMENT IN THE 21ST CENTURY

  7.  Our starting point is the widespread concern that all too often heritage is caricatured as a special interest, elitist or irrelevant to contemporary issues and an obstacle to change. This lack of understanding impedes and undermines the wider role that the heritage sector can play in delivering benefits across the Government's agenda and to society as a whole. It also takes too little account of the profound changes that have transformed our society in recent decades and the impact this has had on society's view of heritage.

  8.  Post-war moves to preserve a way of life defined by privilege, private interest and academic nostalgia have long given way to a bottom-up, people-focused and consumer-driven search for more meaning and resonance in our daily lives. Globalisation, changing lifestyles, increased communication, political devolution, multiculturalism and the emergence of a strong voluntary sector have all led to changes in the way we think, feel and act towards our local environment and heritage and how it reflects our sense of identity and community.

  9.  As History and Place demonstrates, conservation bodies like the National Trust have responded to and embraced this wider societal change, no longer simply preserving places, but learning to manage change and engage people in the process in ways that benefit them as well as their heritage. We are concerned, however, that this approach is stifled by a public policy framework which is no longer fit for purpose—an approach that is pre-occupied with sites and special places rather than the wider historic environment, that fails to sufficiently embrace and engage the community and lay person's views and values alongside that of the expert, and an approach that fails to promote and connect the positive contribution of the historic environment across a whole range of contemporary social, economic and cultural issues.

  10.  The Select Committee Inquiry is, therefore, a welcome opportunity to examine the ways in which heritage enriches lives and stimulates enterprise and to recommend ways in which public policy and investment can respond to contemporary needs and this more democratic, individualistic and immensely popular concept of heritage. The popularity of heritage was most recently confirmed by Taking Part the DCMS's own research into participation levels across its range of interests—with visits to historic sites coming top of the list.

  11.  We believe the historic environment is about ordinary people and ordinary places as well as iconic sites and rare artefacts. Heritage is a source of inspiration and learning for us all and makes a huge contribution to the quality of people's lives and the distinctiveness of the places, both rural and urban, we inhabit. Engaging people in the local significance of these real places and objects contributes to a sense of community, underpins quality of life and can make the difference between aspiration and disillusionment. We know from our practical experience, enabling 500,000 school visits, inspiring over 43,000 volunteers and engaging thousands more in a wide range of ways, including the re-skilling of offenders, that opportunities to understand, experience and contribute to real places promotes well-being and confidence in individuals.

  12.  Distinctiveness also makes business sense, driving tourism and creative industries, and generating employment and demand for skills. Managers of the historic environment are investors in local economies: buying and attracting services, building financial and social capital, caring for public spaces and creating new models of development in rural and urban areas. Our research shows that each National Trust job generates between five and nine full time equivalents in the local economy (see copy of Valuing our Environment (enclosed)). Heritage is a fixed asset and a critical part of our infrastructure, already widely valued and likely to become a bigger influence in decisions over where people and businesses want to locate, and how people spend their leisure time or go on holiday. For example, research for Visit Britain find that history, heritage and culture are all important attractors for international tourists to this country. It is, therefore, a powerful yet vulnerable resource which, harnessed effectively and with the right support, can make a major contribution to the Government's objectives for economic, social and environmental progress.

  13.  Despite growing recognition that heritage matters, it remains in very real need of investment and protection. Only 5% of our historic environment is protected by statutory legislation, and the annual State of the Historic Environment Reports shows that even protected sites are at risk. The costs of building and repair work are inevitably higher for conservation work and are likely to escalate the longer work is left undone. The National Trust alone estimates that our maintenance backlog for buildings and their contents is over £200 million. This is at a time when building costs are rising faster than the general rate of inflation and the voluntary sector is struggling to bear the burden of rising pension costs, insurance premiums and low investment returns. Successful regeneration projects in places as diverse as Grainger Town, Newcastle and the Lizard, Cornwall have shown how timely intervention can release private capital and restore optimism, but the lessons learnt there have yet to be applied more widely or enshrined in planning policy, and more innovative fiscal solutions remain untested.

  14.  We are determined not to see this potential wasted, and recognise the need to do more ourselves in promoting and championing the historic environment. As well as seeking to get our own house in order, we have been working closely with our partners in the historic environment sector to address fragmentation and ensure a more coherent voice and articulation of the benefits and needs of the sector. This has included supporting the establishment of Heritage Link and leading the development of sector-wide priorities and activity (which have been developed in isolation from any Government commitment to its own contribution) to help us modernise, broaden our appeal and deliver greater public benefit. Critically, unless such activity is supported by wider reform and investment from Government, we will struggle to realise the true potential of heritage.

  15.  The sections below set out the case for such wider reform.

1.  What the DCMS should identify as priorities in the forthcoming Heritage White Paper.

Role of the Heritage White Paper

  16.  As part of the welcome modernisation of the system of the heritage protection (the Heritage Protection Review (HPR)), DCMS has committed to the development of a Heritage White Paper. To date, however, the Department has been keen to play down expectations of the White Paper and to view it narrowly as a vehicle for the legislative reform to deliver the HPR. We believe this would be a missed opportunity.

  17.  The Heritage White Paper is one of the few Government heritage initiatives that potentially has a profile beyond DCMS and, as a result, could provide a significant vehicle to demonstrate the role and value of the nation's cultural heritage across a range of Government policy areas and Departments. By setting the heritage protection reforms within a wider context of the historic environment's role in contributing to quality of life and sustainable development, the Heritage White Paper could offer an important opportunity to build support. In so doing it should provide the next step in the process of understanding and strengthening the role of the historic environment initiated by the heritage sector in Power of Place and confirmed in the Government White Paper The Historic Environment: A Force for our Future.

Priorities within the Heritage White Paper

  18.  As well as setting a vision for the historic environment as a whole and challenging some of the commonly held misconceptions about the historic environment which inhibit its management and support, the White Paper should:

    —  make the case for the better protection and management of the historic environment—outlining its role in improving our quality of life, fostering community identity and engagement and underpinning both urban and rural regeneration;

    —  look beyond the boundaries of existing statutory designations and the predominantly "expert" view in determining what is important and why, towards a system of heritage protection that engages a range of people in the process and values the local and the everyday as much as the precious and the rare; and

    —  better integrate heritage protection and incentives with other systems of protection and support, including agricultural support and land use planning—ultimately introducing a programme of measures to ensure heritage assets are maintained in favourable condition—a mix of fiscal incentives, capital investment, public policy and skills.

  19.  A key element of the White Paper should rightly focus on the delivery of the Heritage Protection Review. This should seek to ensure the effective management of, and engagement with, the historic environment in ways that ultimately "democratises" and encourages positive engagement with the historic environment without weakening the existing levels of protection.

  20.  Overall, the National Trust is very supportive of the approach adopted by DCMS and with the changes being made. This includes the creation of a single and unified List of heritage assets and the enhanced responsibilities for English Heritage. We are working closely with English Heritage on a couple of the on-going pilot projects and look forward to sharing and discussing the lessons from these initiatives as they emerge. At this stage, we have four key concerns which it would be helpful to explore during the course of the Committee's inquiry. These are:

    —  Delivery Capacity: There is widespread concern that, despite the welcome thrust of the proposed reforms, they will become unstuck by limited capacity across the sector to deliver them—especially, but not exclusively, in local authorities. What guarantees can the Government give that the reformed system will be adequately resourced? What plans does it have to assess the delivery needs of the new system at local level? What does it see as the needs of the wider heritage sector (including the voluntary sector) in preparing for the new system and what plans do they have to support these needs?

    —  Scope of Protection: Whilst the proposed reforms address many of our key heritage assets, we are concerned that they fail to enhance the protection and profile for historic parks and gardens, including their setting. We know from our own experience that such assets are tremendously popular and yet they currently enjoy only the weakest levels of protection and the proposed reforms will do little to address the problem. As a result, some of our most popular landscapes and gardens, for example the setting of Kedleston Hall on the outskirts of Derby or Saltram on the edge of Exeter, are being undermined and eroded by incremental change and development.

    —  Tools for Engagement: Our hope is that the proposed reforms should result in greater levels of engagement in the historic environment—helping people to understand and engage in decisions about what is protected and why, how it is managed and its wider use. We believe greater emphasis could be given to using and developing a range of engagement tools—including the use of Statements of Significance—to deliver this;

    —  Sector Skills and Competence: Delivering a reformed heritage system in which more people are engaged with the historic environment requires more than a change in the process—it also requires a change in culture and ways of working. It requires an approach in which people (rather than simply places) move centre stage. For many currently operating the system, this already lies at the heart of what they do but for others, communicating and engaging people in the historic environment will require a new skills set and confidence in dealing with people. The delivery of the HPR needs, therefore, to be accompanied by a programme of development of the sector's communication and engagement techniques and skills.

2.  The remit and effectiveness of DCMS, English Heritage and other relevant organisations in representing heritage interests inside and outside Government

Understanding Heritage Interests and Impacts

  21.  Heritage is all around us and not just in self-contained sites. It delivers a wide range of benefits and is relevant across Government. These benefits are not always immediately visible and, as a result, a key role for DCMS as the heritage champion within Government is to identify, raise awareness and support for promoting and enhancing the positive contribution of the historic environment in its many dimensions, including meeting its needs. Of particular importance are the links with ODPM on land use planning and regeneration and with Defra on local environmental quality, sustainable development, cultural landscapes and land management. But there are also important Departmental and policy links with the Home Office on volunteering and community engagement; the DfES on out of classroom learning and skills; and the DTI on regional productivity.

Role and Effectiveness of DCMS

  22.  DCMS currently has this critical role. We are concerned, however, that this is not properly being fulfilled and that important opportunities to enhance the contribution of the historic environment are being missed and the overall quality of the historic environment undermined. Whilst it is important to acknowledge the progress that has been made, for example in taking forward the Heritage Protection Review, and the attention the Secretary of State gave to heritage in her pamphlet Better Places to Live, much more needs to be done. Of critical importance is the need to address the visible impact of the Department on cross-Government agendas. This includes the failure to address the "national disgrace" that is the current state of the Stonehenge World Heritage Site; the lack of visible evidence of the Department playing a role in shaping major Government investment programmes (like the ODPM's Sustainable Communities Programme); standing up for heritage in the face of major developments that threaten heritage assets (such as the impact of the Stansted Airport expansion plans on Hatfield Forest); tackling the low priority given to the historic environment at a regional level—including with Regional Development Agencies; and capitalising on opportunities to promote the contribution of heritage to other agendas (for example, out of classroom learning). Moreover, some of the mechanisms introduced by Government in The Historic Environment: A Force for Our Future to better integrate heritage interests across Government (ie the "heritage proofing" role for Green Ministers) have proven inadequate and lacked commitment.

  23.  Such weaknesses are perhaps symptomatic of wider problems within the Department itself. By comparison with other Departments with which the National Trust deals, DCMS performs poorly as a champion for its sector. In particular, we would like to highlight to the Committee the problems caused by:

    —  the lack of priority given to the historic environment within DCMS itself. For example, there are only 17 mentions given to heritage or the historic environment given in the Department's current five year plan and it regularly fails to secure Ministerial attention or be promoted by DCMS. Only 23 out of 146 press announcements last year had a heritage focus. This is despite the DCMS's own evidence that heritage is the most popular aspect of the Department's areas of responsibility—with the recent participation survey Taking Part showing the most frequent activity undertaken by the public was visiting historic sties. This makes it difficult for the wider sector to engage and contribute to more mainstream initiatives—both internal and external to the Department;

    —  the lack of resources and delivery plan supporting the PSA target for the historic environment (PSA3). Whilst we broadly welcome the target to encourage greater access to the historic environment to new audiences, there are very real risks that sector will fail to deliver it. We believe the process of developing the target is symptomatic of the lack of political and senior level support for the historic environment within the Department. This included a lack of engagement of the sector responsible for delivering the target when it was broadened beyond English Heritage in 2005, the failure to allocate additional resources to support delivery and the lack of a clear delivery plan. Whilst a group has now been established to help develop a delivery plan (which includes the National Trust), the lack of additional resources to fully embrace the challenge of reaching new audiences remains a real obstacle; and

    —  missed opportunities to join up internally. For example, the historic environment struggled to get recognised in the DCMS voluntary sector work and an earlier pamphlet on culture (published by the Secretary of State in 2004) failed to mention the important role of the historic environment in relation to culture. This was later remedied by a subsequent pamphlet Better Places to Live. Despite the welcome broadening and integration of the brief for the new Culture Minister, linking historic environment with the wider work of the department remains difficult with new challenges including the preparations for the Olympic Games in London in 2012.

  24.  If heritage is to secure its proper place in the lifeblood of the nation, DCMS needs to become a more committed and effective champion of the historic environment. We believe the arrival of a new and energetic Minister (with a broad portfolio) is a real opportunity to redress the current imbalance and low priority given to heritage. The challenges are to ensure the visibility of the historic environment internally and across Government, to constantly challenge the caricatures and sell the positive contribution of the historic environment to quality of life, to champion heritage for its own sake (making a robust case for investment) and building the capacity of sector help with the wider reform and modernisation of heritage management and public engagement. Without more substantial progress on these and other fronts we believe the case for exploring alternative structures to DCMS for dealing with our cultural heritage may need to be explored.

  25.  As highlighted above, the Heritage White Paper is a key opportunity to raise the game—to establish the rationale and support for heritage investment (in policy and fiscal terms)—and the outcome of the forthcoming Comprehensive Spending Review will be a tangible measure of both the Department's and wider Government's willingness and commitment to this agenda. We look forward to working closely with the Department as it prepares the case for greater investment in the historic environment.

  26.  As well as a greater commitment to the historic environment, we believe there is also a case for the establishment of a national cultural forum—that reflects the make-up of the English regional Cultural Consortia. This new mechanism would seek to better integrate the historic environment into DCMS's work and oversee delivery of the on-going reforms in ways that allow for greater participation of key sector stakeholders.

Overall Role and Effectiveness of English Heritage

  27.  Following the most recent Quinquennial review of English Heritage, it has played an increasingly important role in growing and developing the heritage sector as well as providing clear and independent advice to Government on historic environment issues. Some of the most recent and welcome developments include the role English Heritage has played in supporting Regional Historic Environment Fora, developing the annual Heritage Counts reports (which monitor the state of the historic environment and create a valuable platform to highlight the benefits of heritage as well as the need for greater investment), its support for Heritage Link (which provides a valuable focus for collaborative action within the sector), and its increasingly participative approach to research and developing projects (especially through the Historic Environment Review Executive Committee and the Heritage Forum).

  28.  A key problem, however, has been the ability of English Heritage to influence wider policy and investment and to build wider support for the historic environment. This is due, to a large extent, to the low priority given to the historic environment by DCMS as well as wider Government we highlighted above. This has been exacerbated by the overall reduction in grant in aid to English Heritage in real terms over the last five years—undermining its work in many areas including its critical role in providing grants for conservation work.

  29.  This lack of support and cut in resources has been exacerbated by the uncertainty created about the future of English Heritage and other public sector heritage bodies following DCMS's stated intention in its five-year plan to "take a radical look at the way heritage bodies work together to preserve and provide access to heritage and the built environment". Whist we believe more could be done to enhance the role of English Heritage—especially in relation to its support for the wider historic environment sector—we believe it is more important to give it the time and resources needed to deliver the benefits of recent reforms and to further develop its enhanced role. In other words, we believe the proposed plans for wider reform of English Heritage as indicated in five-year plan would be an unwelcome distraction at this time and urge the Committee to call for a clear statement from DCMS to this effect. Instead, we believe DCMS should redouble its support for English Heritage and the historic environment and, in particular, reverse the decent decline in grant in aid.

  30.  Recent cuts in the English Heritage budget, however, have highlighted the underlying tensions between its role as an advisor, sponsor, regulator and provider of historic environment assets. We are concerned that when resources are tight, the current terms of reference and the role of English Heritage in managing sites can place the organisation in an invidious position of having to make choices between its responsibility to look after the assets in its direct management, its role as an advisor and its ability to deliver wider sector support.

  31.  We, believe, therefore, there may be advantages in formalising the key role of English Heritage in sponsoring and developing the sector—provided such reforms are backed with the resources needed to make this a reality. Key areas which would benefit additional resources and clarity would include:

    —  supporting the proposed national cultural consortia and ensuring the sector is represented and engaged in policy development and delivery at a national level;

    —  leading the development and supporting delivery of strategic sector priorities—building on the success of the Historic Environment Review Executive Committee; and

    —  developing and sharing best practice tools and techniques across a range of areas of expertise including deepening and broadening public engagement with the historic environment.

Role and Effectiveness of Other Bodies

  32.  Given the broad scope of the historic environment, there are also a range of other bodies that have a significant impact on the sector and the wider management of our cultural heritage. In particular, we would highlight the following bodies:

    —  Museums, Libraries and Archives—the MLA, with its targeted remit and dedicated support, has played a critical role in raising awareness and fostering support for the museum, library and archives sector. The Renaissance in the Regions initiative has, in particular, provided a catalyst for wider reform and development of this sector at a regional and local level. The National Trust, with 149 registered museums welcomes our recent accreditation as a museums authority and looks forward to working more closely with the MLA in the coming years. As both a major player in the museums world and a leading body within the heritage sector, we would welcome greater joint working between the MLA and English Heritage and other heritage sector bodies—to share resources, expertise and wider support for the sector. A current area of concern remains the lack of progress in fully implementing the recommendations of the Goodison Review Securing the Best for Museums: Private Giving and Government Support which looked at the support to regional and national museums and galleries to help them acquire works of art and culture of distinction that might otherwise be sold abroad.

    —  Heritage Lottery Fund—the HLF has had a hugely positive impact on the sector—changing attitudes and perceptions about who and what heritage is for (including targeted support for the local and everyday, as well as special and rare); driving culture change within the sector (specifically on social inclusion and engagement); and critically funding capital investment—for which there are limited other opportunities or bodies to turn to. Its support has enable the Trust to undertake major renovation work (for example, at Hardwick Hall, Derbyshire); acquire some of most exciting and significant properties (for example, Tyntesfield near Bristol and the Chambre Hardman photographic studio at Rodney Street in Liverpool); and to develop our participative approach to conservation—engaging new and existing audiences in our work and deriving wider benefits to society (for example, our innovative approach to interpretation and the arts—Untold Story).

    —  Heritage Link and the wider voluntary sector—Much of the energy of the historic environment sector comes from the diverse range of voluntary groups and local organisations that it comprises. In its relatively short life, Heritage Link has rapidly become an invaluable focus for the sector, enabling greater participation of the voluntary sector in policy development; helping to combine and build our influence; and sharing and developing our capacity and expertise. Underpinned by welcome support from English Heritage, it delivers well above its weight and with more support can deliver more for the sector and the public.

    —  Private Owners—It is also important to recognise that the vast majority of heritage assets are in private ownership. The HHA has an important role to play in representing the interests of privately owned houses and more work is needed to ensure private owners are adequately supported in their work looking after the historic assets in their care. There are also opportunities through the Heritage Protection Review, to do more to engage and build the support of private owners for heritage management.

3.  The balance between heritage and development needs in planning policy

  33.  The protection of heritage assets and regeneration are all too often seen as opposing forces. Heritage is misunderstood as a barrier to progress—something that needs to be overcome to enable development to take place. We know from our own experience, however, that the reality is that with care and attention heritage protection and regeneration can go hand in hand. Indeed, research has shown that heritage protection can deliver greater regeneration benefits (see, for example, the English Heritage report Heritage Dividend). Our own work investing in our properties shows the positive contribution of heritage protection to economic and community regeneration.

  34.  Whilst we accept that we cannot protect everything, we believe that given the positive benefits of heritage protection, current levels of protection are not strong enough. We see the impacts of this lack of protection across our estate—from the threats of major development to the more insidious impacts of small-scale change. For example:

    —  the growing urban sprawl of Derby around the classical Palladian mansion and surrounding Robert Adam designed parkland at Kedleston Hall is eroding the setting and integrity of this important asset;

    —  the proposed major development at Stansted Airport, and the new second runway proposal, will potentially have a devastating impact on the ecology and tranquil character of the ancient hunting ground of Hatfield Forest and on the countryside and settlements nearby; and

    —  the numerous insensitively located telecommunications masts and wind turbines in and around the Lake District are disturbing much treasured views and tranquillity of this important landscape.

  35.  The recently published primary planning policy statement PPS1 states that planning should facilitate and promote sustainable development by "protecting and enhancing the natural and historic environment, the quality and character of the countryside and existing communities". This is a welcome principle, and an improvement on earlier drafts of the PPS but it is still too early to assess its impact on the wider planning and development control process. In the meantime we still await the long overdue revision of Planning Policy Guidance notes 15 and 16 (following the Heritage Protection Review)—which should clearly set out why planning authorities should be committed to protecting and enhancing the historic environment and ensure planning authorities have the tools needed to deliver this. This includes communities and planners having the tools and knowledge to understand what is important and why (see Recharging the Power of Place: Valuing local significance (copy enclosed)).

  36.  As important as ensuring the planning policy framework encourages and supports the protection of the historic environment is ensuring those implementing or engaging with the planning system understand and support the contribution of the historic environment to regeneration and a range of other objectives. The work of English Heritage in actively engaging local authorities, developers and other partners at an early stage of planning and development is critical—and maximises the chances of securing a win-win outcome.

4.  Access to heritage and the position of heritage as a cultural asset in the community

The Benefits of Access to the Historic Environment

  37.  As we highlighted in paragraphs 7 to 15 above, we believe heritage has a central role to play as a cultural and community asset in the 21st century. History and heritage are enjoying tremendous popularity and public interest. Membership of organisations like the National Trust and English Heritage are at record levels, TV schedules packed with history programmes and the DCMS Taking Part survey found that visiting a historic environment site was the most popular activity across the DCMS's range of interests.

  38.  We believe this interest is being driven by a wider desire to understand our place in the world, to find meaning and resonance in our daily lives. Providing access to the historic environment also provides a range of wider benefits including fostering social inclusion, encouraging community engagement, generating civic pride, and underpinning national and cultural identity. There are also wider economic benefits of heritage which we highlighted above. Such benefits come over and above the intrinsic value of heritage—its existence value.

  39.  The National Trust is committed to fulfilling our core purpose of looking after special place for ever, for everyone. Access is central to what we do and what we stand for. Indeed it was a primary motivation for our founders including Octavia Hill, the social reformer, who was passionate about ensuring people had access to beautiful and inspiring places as a means of improving their lives. We have stayed true to this passion throughout our existence and currently invest significantly in ensuring access to our properties and that this experience is a rewarding one. We welcome over 12 million visits to our pay for entry properties each year and over 50 million to our open countryside and coastal properties. We also offer a range of deeper levels of engagement including catering for 500,000 school visits, 33,000 students in formal education, 43,000 volunteers (without whom we couldn't open—but the vast majority of whom really enjoy and value the experience) and countless projects from theatre and arts projects to wildlife walks, tours, talks and other events.

  40.  Such opportunities provide a range of wider benefits. For example, a recent evaluation of our volunteering effort Vital Volunteers (copy enclosed) found that their work for the Trust also helped our volunteers to develop new skills, widen horizons, make friends, keep active and feel good about the fact that they are giving something back to the community. More recently, we have evaluated the long term impacts of our education programmes. Some of our early findings are that engaging with the National Trust properties has helped pupils understand and feel responsible for their local environment and to develop social skills like tolerance, group work and understanding different perspectives.

  41.  A growing concern has been the impacts of the tourism and leisure sector's dependence on visitors arriving by car. Research show that the distance travelled for day trips in the UK has increased more than 30% since 1985. More than seven out of ten day trips, and nearly eight of ten holiday trips are currently made by car. Not only is such car dependence (sensitive to increases or shortages in fuel), the impacts of traffic and traffic management can damage the quality of the visitor experience and undermine the assets visitors are attracted by in the first place. Our leaflet Visitor Travel: Policy from Practice (copy enclosed) outlines the scope of the problem and makes a series of recommendations to tackle these. In particular, we urge the Committee to call on DCMS to work with DfT and Defra to develop ways of managing historic properties for visitors which help reduce the impacts of rising traffic levels.

Reaching New Audiences and PSA3

  42.  The National Trust is committed to deepening and broadening our engagement with the public. Whilst we have been concerned about the process by which the current PSA3 target was established, we are committed to supporting its delivery. To be successful, however, we need help. Not only does reaching new audiences require significant investment in marketing and product design (and in many respects is a business risk), it also requires the tools and expertise to engage new and different audiences and it comes at a time when we as an organisation are focusing on deepening our engagement with existing audiences.

  43.  If we are to maximise access to the historic environment then some of the key barriers we will need to address include:

    —  challenging perceptions among new audiences about what we are about—demonstrating our wider relevance;

    —  understanding their needs and developing "offers" that reflect these needs and interests; and

    —  ensuring our staff and volunteers are trained and feel comfortable about welcoming new visitors.

  44.  We look forward to working with DCMS and our sector partners in making the vision underlying the demanding PSA3 target a reality. This means ensuring the subsequent delivery plan addresses the key issues and develops the tools and techniques to tackle these.

5.  Funding, with particular reference to the adequacy of the budget for English Heritage and for museums and galleries, the impact of the London 2012 Olympics on Lottery funding for heritage projects, and forthcoming decisions on the sharing of funds from Lottery sources between good causes

Costs and Levels of Support for Maintenance and Repair

  45.  The costs of maintaining and managing the assets which so many people care about and from which the benefits we have outlined above are derived, is becoming a major concern and challenge—for the National Trust and the wider sector. For example, the Trust's current backlog of maintenance work amounts to more than £200 million, and this is over and above our short term and regular maintenance costs. More widely, English Heritage estimates the total amount needed to bring all the buildings on the buildings at risk register into a good state of repair to be over £400 million.

  46.  We face such costs against a backdrop of declines in real terms of available resources and support. This includes the cuts in English Heritage grants, pressure on resources available through the National Lottery and a threat in the medium term of reductions in support available through other channels such as the agri-environment schemes. For example, over the last three years the Trust has seen a 38% reduction in grant support from English Heritage. This grant is used to support the maintenance and repair costs in places like Hardwick and Keddleston Halls and for activity which is not eligible for support from any other public funds. Such pressure on resources has a knock-on impact on other parts of our work. For example, as our limited resources are absorbed into maintaining the fabric of the assets in our care, so our ability to find the resources needed to develop and broaden appeal is undermined.

Benefits of Heritage Investment

  47.  We know, however, that investing in heritage assets can deliver a range of wider benefits. For example, the National Trust's Valuing our Environment work demonstrated that our activities in looking after the historic and natural environments alone generate between five and nine additional full time jobs for every person (Full Time Equivalent) directly employed by the Trust. It also demonstrated the wider connections between a high quality environment and a healthy economy—with, for example, up to 70% of jobs created through tourism dependent upon the quality of the environment.

  48.  More widely, there is a range of research that demonstrates the broad benefits of heritage investment. For example:

    —  the Heritage Dividend report for English Heritage found that £10,000 of heritage investment levers £46,000 match funding from the private sector and public sources;

    —  research on behalf of the Association of English Cathedrals and English Heritage found that the additional spend in the local economy by visitors to cathedrals was estimated to be some £91 million a year. When additional multipliers are added to this, the total economic impact rises to £150 million; and

    —  a report for Heritage Link into the contribution of the voluntary sector to regeneration The Heritage Dynamo found that local conservation groups rather than being an obstacle to change were a catalyst for action—spotting opportunities for investment, providing skills and advice and generating economic benefits for the local area.

  49.  More recently, we have been exploring new methods of assessing the benefits of heritage investment—including the concept of public value. This has found a way of capturing both the economic and wider social or public benefits of historic places. This includes, for example, the fact that over 90% of our visitors leave our properties having learned something—whether or not that was a motivation for going there in the first place. It is helping us find ways of assessing and measuring the true value of heritage—as people experience it—and the value of investing in the care of the assets themselves.

  50.  With the Government now preparing for its Comprehensive Spending Review in 2007, there is now a critical and important opportunity to reverse this recent cycle of decline in heritage investment. This needs to go beyond the restoration of English Heritage grant and the retention of a heritage strand to Lottery to consider the whole range of ways in which Government can support the historic environment. This includes:

    —  a reduction in the level of VAT on repairs;

    —  fiscal incentives for the management of heritage assets in private ownership;

    —  developing an approach to tax efficient giving which supports the donation of heritage assets, such as lifetime legacies;

    —  support for skills and capital investment through agri-environment measures; and

    —  incentives to address the loss and dispersal of collections from their local or historical context and to meet the challenge of conserving them in the long term (implementing the Goodison Review).

Impact of Olympics

  51.  The success of London securing the 2012 Olympic Games presents both tremendous opportunities as well as some potential threats to the heritage sector. On the positive side, the prominence of heritage sites and assets in the bid itself, and the role of our cultural heritage as an integral part of the UK's tourism offer, means the Games and the publicity around them potentially provide a once in a lifetime opportunity to showcase this to the world and raise awareness of their inherent and wider value. Funding and ensuring a successful Games will inevitably demand a diversion of attention and potentially much needed resources away from the existing good causes. The challenge is to maximise the potential and minimise any short-term negative impact. Critically, it will be important to ensure the reality of attending the Games and experiencing our unique heritage meets visitor expectations—especially if to encourage repeat and longer-term benefits of the Games.

  52.  We are already engaging with DCMS and others to ensure the success of the Games and to make the most of the opportunities they create for the historic environment. Our main concerns are that:

    —  the heritage assets showcased in the run-up and during the Games are in good condition and that there is a lasting and meaningful legacy from the Games for the wider heritage sector. This includes seriously addressing the transport solutions that are urgently needed to address the loss of tranquillity and quality of Stonehenge, exploring the value of establishing a new Sporting Heritage Trust (to care for some of most important sporting heritage sites and stories) and a general raising of public and political awareness and understanding of heritage and its value;

    —  there is a strong focus on domestic marketing (rather than a concentration on international visitors)—to reduce the potential displacement of current domestic visits and make the most of the economic impact of the Games (as most people attending will be UK residents);

    —  a historic environment visitor offer is developed that seeks to spread and lengthen the impact of the Games beyond London; and

    —  the development of the cultural programme for the Games with a strong heritage focus is launched in Liverpool (City of Culture 2008) in 2008 and is designed to build up to the Olympics themselves.

6.  Roles and responsibilities for English Heritage, Heritage Lottery Fund, local authorities, museums and galleries, charitable and other non-Governmental organisations in maintaining the nation's heritage

  53.  See previous answer to question 2.

7.  Whether there is an adequate supply of professionals with conservation skills; the priority placed by planning authorities on conservation; and means of making conservation expertise more accessible to planning officers, councillors and the general public

  54.  There is also growing evidence that as well as the lack of funding to support the maintenance of heritage assets, a shortage in the availability of maintenance skills is making the job all the more difficult. This shortage has been identified in a number of reports including by the National Heritage Training Group and a skills mapping exercise undertaken by Heritage Link. We have recently secured funding from the HLF to develop a new heritage building skills bursary scheme with English Heritage which should help address some of the key shortages but a more concerted effort to address the issue of skills is needed. This includes raising the profile of the heritage sector with the new sector skills councils—including the Creative and Cultural Industries Sector Skills Council. Some of the more generic issues that need to addressed, in addition to shortages of people with specific skills, include career progression, workforce diversity and volunteer management.

  55.  As well as ensuring we have the skills needed to maintain our heritage assets, we also need to ensure we have the skills and resources needed to manage the new system of heritage management. This has a number of dimensions including:

    —  the numbers and capacity of staff (especially in local authorities) to deliver the new system of protection;

    —  the skills and understanding of these people of the requirements of the new system—which potentially impacts on private owners, volunteers and voluntary organisations who are also engaged in heritage management; and

    —  ensuring that all of those people involved in heritage are equipped with the skills and confidence to communicate and importance and value of the historic environment—to build support, encourage engagement and ensure the heritage in our care reflects the contemporary views and values of people today.

January 2006





 
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