Memorandum by the Heritage Lottery Fund
(HLF) (CT 53)
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Britain has always been a seafaring nation and
this relationship with the sea has shaped our identity. The buildings,
landscapes, collections, places and indeed memories associated
with the coast and seafaring are central to our heritage. Without
that heritage, Britain would be a poorer and less diverse place.
The Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) has funded a
wide variety of heritage in coastal towns, ranging from parks
and regeneration, to museum projects and activities. Projects
funded by HLF can make a direct contribution to sustainable communities
through regenerating run down areas, reviving public parks and
improving public spaces, as well as by contributing to social
goals. Over eleven years HLF has given more than £3.3 billion
to 16,000 projects, over £1 billion of which has gone into
urban regeneration making HLF one of the bigger regeneration funds
in the UK.
HLF has funded a range of coastal heritage from
landscapes to community projects, over £234 million of which
has gone to 517 projects in those towns that are defined as English
Coastal Resorts.
The Government is currently consulting on future
lottery shares to heritage and it is important to retain that
share if this work is to continue.
1. ABOUT THE
HERITAGE LOTTERY
FUND
HLF is the UK's leading heritage funder, distributing
the heritage share of National Lottery proceeds. It is the only
heritage organisation that both operates UK-wide, and funds all
types of heritage—including: built heritage; museums, libraries
and archives; natural heritage; industrial, maritime and transport
heritage; and the heritage of language, dialect and cultural traditions.
HLF currently distributes 16.66% of the money
for good causes and since 1995 has committed £3.3 billion
in 16,000 awards to heritage projects. The aims of the Fund are
to:
— conserve and enhance the UK's diverse
heritage;
— encourage more people to be involved
in and make decisions about their heritage;
— ensure that everyone can learn about,
have access to, and enjoy their heritage; and
— bring about a more equitable spread
of our grants across the UK.
National Heritage Memorial Fund
The parent body for HLF is the National Heritage
Memorial Fund (NHMF), set up by the National Heritage Act 1980
with wide powers to fund heritage throughout the UK in memory
of people who have given their lives for the UK. The NHMF operates
as a fund of last resort, saving items of national importance
that would otherwise be lost. In its 25 years it has awarded £220
million for more than 1,200 projects.
2. FUNDING FOR
COASTAL TOWNS
HLF operates a series of different grant programmes,
including Your Heritage (grants under £50,000) and Heritage
Grants (over £50,000). There are also a series of targeted
initiatives, covering places of worship, young people, landscape
partnerships, townscapes, public parks and local heritage. Coastal
heritage projects can be funded under any one of HLF's different
grant programmes.
Using the definition provided by the British
Resorts Association, HLF has, since 1994, given £234 million
to 517 projects in English Coastal Resorts—that includes
a project in nearly every English Coastal Resort town (see Appendix
One and Appendix Two). This list excludes funding to other towns
or cities on the coast of Britain such as Chatham, Southampton
or Liverpool.
Around £104 million of that funding has
gone to Coastal Resorts in deprived areas, including Blackpool,
Falmouth, Great Yarmouth, Hastings, North Shields, Penzance, Redcar,
Saltburn-by-the-Sea and Southport. Around £23.5 million has
gone to projects in Coastal Resorts that are in former coalfields
(some of which are also defined as deprived areas) including Herne
Bay, Whitley Bay, Whitstable, Sunderland, South Shields and Hartlepool.
3. EXAMPLES OF
PROJECTS IN
COASTAL TOWNS
Public Parks
Public parks were often created as a central
feature in Victorian seaside towns. HLF has funded 41 historic
public parks in resort towns, including the Marine gardens on
the seafront in Clacton which now attract over two million visitors
a year. Once hailed as the finest public gardens in the world,
Mowbray Park in Sunderland was unsafe and unappealing until a
major HLF-funded restoration project transformed the gardens,
creating a new winter garden and recreating a sense of public
pride and ownership. In combination with other projects including
a Townscape Heritage Initiative and funding to the museum, the
area is now safer and more attractive and has become a focus for
new residential development.
Other examples of the restoration of public
parks in Coastal Resorts include Tower Gardens in Skegness, Stanley
Park in Blackpool, the Jubilee Bathing Pool in Penzance and the
Southend Cliffs in Southend-on-Sea. Each of these projects has
given new life to public spaces, making them more welcoming to
tourists and local communities, and increasing business and public
confidence.
Townscape Heritage Initiatives
Townscape Heritage Initiative (THI) is a grant
programme which promotes conservation as an essential part of
urban regeneration, encouraging the repair and reuse of historic
buildings in partnership with local planning authorities and others.
HLF has given over £66 million to 43 THIs (and previously
Conservation Area Partnerships) in coastal resorts. For example,
the historic fishing village of Staithes in Yorkshire retains
much of its 18th and 19th century character; following the closure
of the railway line and changes in regional industries, most local
employment now relies on tourism. HLF has worked with North York
Moors National Park, Scarborough Borough Council and Yorkshire
Forward to regenerate the town in order to improve the quality
of life for residents. Similarly, St Leonards was built as a Victorian
coastal resort but by the 1990s, many of its grand buildings were
in poor condition. A £1 million THI grant from HLF has attracted
nearly £1 million in additional funding and has already made
a significant contribution to regenerating this town. It is linked
to other initiatives such as tackling crime, security and public
transport, and already the image of the town is improving.
These are just two examples of coastal towns
from across England where heritage is contributing to sustainable
communities by acting as a catalyst for wider regeneration.
Conservation
HLF has contributed around £75 million
to building conservation in coastal resorts either as part of
THIs or individual grants, bringing many individual historic buildings
back into productive use. For example, Saltburn Pier was built
in the 1860s and is now the only remaining pleasure pier in the
North East. Over £1 million from HLF has restored the pier
and improved access, contributing to a growing local tourism spend.
In Bexhill, the once-condemned De La Warr Pavilion has now been
restored to its former glory as an iconic modern building.
HLF has also funded a number of historic ships
that lie at the centre of regenerated harbour-side areas. HMS
Trincomalee, built in Bombay in 1817, is the oldest ship afloat
in the UK. An HLF grant of £4.8 million has helped restore
and interpret the ship, and has made a significant contribution
to the regeneration of the Hartlepool dockside. The award-winning
project has changed the perception of the area so much that it
now features in a national VisitBritain tourism campaign.
Because conservation tends to make greater use
of local labour and materials, all of these projects are likely
to be making a more significant contribution to the local economy
than new build.
Museums
HLF has supported more than 600 museums across
the UK. On the south coast of England alone we have supported
museums in Brighton, Bournemouth, Bexhill, Hastings, Eastbourne,
Torquay and Exeter among others.
One of the most spectacular HLF projects is
the new National Maritime Museum Cornwall at Falmouth, an impressive
waterfront building with underwater windows through which visitors
can see marine life and a 30 metre tower with panoramic views
of the harbour. By helping to strengthen the year round visitor
economy and lengthen the visitor season, the museum is an extremely
important asset for the Cornish tourist economy.
Great Yarmouth was once a top seaside destination
for Victorian and Edwardian holiday-makers, but has been in decline
for many decades to the extent that two of the wards are among
the most deprived in the UK. The Tower Curing Works has been brought
back to life as the Time and Tide museum which celebrates the
maritime and fishing heritage of Great Yarmouth, bringing to life
its herring curing industry and the lives of the people who worked
there. The £4.7 million project, funded by Great Yarmouth
Borough Council, the Heritage Lottery Fund, East of England Development
Agency and ERDF, aims to provide the community with a sense of
place in history, identity and self esteem. Together with other
initiatives supported by HLF—a THI and work to Nelson's
Monument—this project is helping to make Great Yarmouth
a year round destination and helping to tackle underlying social
problems.
The Slave Trade
2007 is the 200th anniversary of the abolition
of the trans-Atlantic slave trade in British Ships. The major
coastal cities of Liverpool, Hull and Bristol were important centres
for this trade. This is a critical part of our heritage which
has shaped the society in which we live today, and is represented
in museum and archive collections and in many historic buildings
and places. The anniversary will be an opportunity to deepen and
spread knowledge about a significant part of our history. HLF
has supported 28 different projects relating to slavery, including
major awards to National Museums Liverpool for the National Museum
and Centre for the Understanding of Transatlantic Slavery, to
Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery for the new city museum itself
which will include a gallery on Bristol and the slave trade, and
Hull Museums and Art Gallery for the development of the Wilberforce
House Museum. We have also produced guidance to help applicants
develop projects relating to the bicentenary, and are members
of the Ministerial Bicentenary Advisory Group co-ordinated by
ODPM.
4. FUNDING FOR
COASTAL HERITAGE
HLF funds a wide variety of coastal heritage,
not all of which is necessarily found in Coastal Resorts; cities
such as Liverpool, Southampton and Hull have all benefited from
major HLF projects—Liverpool alone has had over £73
million in funding. At Chatham in Kent for example, HLF has helped
conserve three historic warships—HM Submarine Ocelot, HMS
Cavalier and HMS Gannett. The dockyard closed in 1984 but as a
result of HLF funding, it has been revived as a centre for heritage
and regeneration, bringing around £20 million to the local
economy each year. The improvements have already had wider regeneration
implications for the Thames Gateway area.
HLF has also supported many other projects around
the coasts of Britain; our broad definition of heritage includes
biodiversity, and groups such as the Helford Voluntary Marine
Conservation Group have had funding to care for and interpret
the biodiversity of the local estuary. At Abbots Hall Farm the
Essex Wildlife Trust are undertaking an innovative coastal biodiversity
project; with support from HLF, they have breached the sea walls,
reducing coastal erosion in nearby areas and recreating important
wetland habitats. HLF has also funded outstanding coastal landscapes
such as the Jurassic Coast as well as projects to conserve historic
docks and harbours, such as the docks at Lydney in Gloucestershire.
5. CONCLUSION
Britain has always been a seafaring nation,
and its relationship with the sea has shaped our identity. The
buildings, landscapes, collections, places and indeed memories
associated with the coast and seafaring are central to our heritage.
Coastal towns and cities—and indeed Britain's
coastline—have benefited greatly from the £3.3 billion
HLF has invested in the heritage of the UK, from tiny community
projects to major capital developments. Many of those projects
have generated partnerships between regional funding bodies, local
authorities and HLF. They have shown that heritage can be a catalyst
for physical, economic and social regeneration—creating
sustainable communities by caring for what people value.
The Government is currently consulting on the
future shares of Lottery income for the good causes; it is vital
that we at least maintain our share in order to continue to support
conservation, regeneration and public involvement at this level.
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