It’s time we took industrial action

The industrial heritage sector appeals to a much wider audience than just “men of a certain age messing around with oily rags” – as the chief executive of Sheffield Industrial Museums Trust, Helen Featherstone, put it in her evidence for a new all-party parliamentary report on the challenges facing the sector – but it is in urgent need of strategic thinking and government support.

That is the key message of the report, which was published in May by the Labour MP for Torfaen, Nick Thomas-Symonds. Calling for a national strategy to conserve the UK’s industrial heritage, the report is the opening salvo of a renewed effort to urge the UK government and other stakeholders to show greater leadership in preserving and sustaining the country’s industrial heritage assets, some of which are falling into a state of crisis.

The report draws on the evidence of professionals from the industrial heritage community from across the UK. Although there are many positive findings – particularly the economic and public value of industrial heritage – it paints a worrying picture of the current state of the sector following a decade of funding cuts and the associated depletion of skills, knowledge and resources, as well as changes to the educational curriculum.

One of the most serious concerns raised by the report is the sharp drop in specialist expertise, particularly among local authorities. It revealed that the number of archaeological specialists advising local authorities in England has fallen by 35% since 2006, while the number of conservation specialists has dropped by 37%. Overall, 17% of the archaeology profession has been lost in that period. Industrial heritage is a relatively niche area within the wider archaeological community, further exacerbating this skills deficit.

Even before austerity, the skills shortage was a problem in the sector. The report acknowledges that industrial heritage has never been fully embedded into the university system, and while there are apprenticeships and other forms of training available at individual sites, very few places in the UK offer broader, more strategic courses in industrial heritage.

Skills shortage

This skills shortage looks set to get worse as the ageing industrial heritage workforce retires. One contributor to the report told how her team of engineers ranged in age from 49 to 74, raising fears about future succession planning. In England, the younger generation has also missed out on an introduction to industrial heritage in the school curriculum. Several respondents told the report that major changes to the primary and secondary curricula in England had “severely impacted” the potential to attract entrants to the industrial heritage field, with museums and other institutions finding that their targeted education programmes had become redundant, sending “15 years of investment down the drain”.

Care and preservation

Caring for and operating sites is complex and dangerous, and this loss of skills and expertise has serious implications for the practical care and preservation of industrial heritage, and the value in which it is held by local authorities and other stakeholders. With no one taking responsibility or ownership over them, some sites are falling through the gaps. Neil Cossons, the industrial heritage expert and retired head of English Heritage, who gave evidence for the report, says: “This issue was highlighted by the national outcry when Lancashire County Council closed Queen Street Mill and Helmshore Mills Textile Museum. There was no proper recognition that these were sites of national – even international – importance that the council just happened to be caring for.”

Thanks, in part, to the depth of public feeling about the closures, both mill museums have now reopened and Queen Street Mill has received a £200,000 grant towards repairs. But other significant sites remain at risk, says Cossons, such as Chatterley Whitfield colliery in Stoke-on-Trent. The country’s most comprehensive surviving example of a deep-mine site has been derelict for years and is in a state of severe disrepair. “Any number of efforts have been made to sort it out and nobody has succeeded,” he says.

Lack of funding

This highlights another issue outlined in the report: the difficulty of raising sustainable funding to preserve industrial heritage sites – and the question of what to do with them following conservation.

Respondents reported difficulties in securing capital grants and, in particular, ongoing revenue funding, describing the problems of making a business plan for contaminated brownfield sites or those in difficult, out-of-town locations with little transport infrastructure for potential visitors. Other respondents gave evidence that the way in which grants from funding bodies are allocated – with short application periods and time-limited funding – can work against industrial heritage projects’ more complex needs.

Industrial sites have enjoyed some recent funding success, however. The Newport Transporter Bridge in Wales has applied for £10m from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) to pay for repairs and a new visitor centre, and was recently allocated £1m to progress its plans.

Visitor expectations are changing, however, according to transport historian Oliver Green: “The old-fashioned industrial museum – looking at the processes and nuts and bolts – is not what people want to visit. Perhaps the way forward is to have something that is linked in a broader way to other things.” Green points to the Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology in Lisbon, Portugal, as an example of a former industrial site that has incorporated the preservation of its industrial artefacts with a wider remit of displaying art and technology. But it’s unlikely that the UK’s cash-strapped authorities would take a similar risk on such an institution, he says.

Growing public interest

Although funding is becoming increasingly scarce, it is clear that public interest in industrial heritage is growing. A recent survey by Historic England found that 80% of people think it is as important to preserve industrial heritage as other types of heritage such as castles and country houses. The recent promotion of the science, technology, engineering and maths agenda, particularly in the UK government’s educational and industrial strategies, means the sector is also taking on a new relevance.

The parliamentary report acknowledges the need to improve the inclusivity of industrial heritage which, as Featherstone’s quote implies, has been stereotyped as the preserve of white, male visitors of a certain age.

For some years, industrial museums have been trying to broaden their appeal and diversify their interpretation and audiences; Leeds Industrial Museum’s current exhibition, Queens of Industry, which highlights the contribution of working-class women to industry, is one such example.

New audiences

There is particular potential for the sector to build on the unique connection of industrial heritage to working-class audiences that other museums struggle to reach, says Cossons. “Almost everyone in a British town or village has someone who worked in a mill, a mine or a forge,” he says. “There’s a very powerful message that is perhaps being neglected when we talk blithely about inclusivity – there are marginalised communities we could reach that have been completely overlooked.”

But what does the report hope to achieve? It acknowledges that funding will remain scarce and that the government’s focus on Brexit leaves little room for anything else. It does offer cost-effective examples of measures that industrial sites could take to address some of the challenges they face. In addition to better skills training and improved inclusivity, the report calls for better collaboration between trusts and groups within the sector.