The Heritage Alliance (HA), formerly known as Heritage Link, has produced a manifesto calling for a more coherent and efficient heritage protection system.
“Our top ask is to revive the Heritage Protection bill,” said Kate Pugh, the HA’s secretary. “We were extremely disappointed that the bill was not taken on and did not appear in the Queen’s speech.”
A spokesman for the Department for Culture, Media and Sport said: “It is the intention to introduce the bill at the first available parliamentary opportunity.” However, he added that the reality was that it was unlikely to happen in this parliament, and could be delayed further depending on the outcome of the election.
The manifesto also calls for the urgent restoration of lottery support to heritage, and a review of local authority financing. Matthew Slocombe, deputy secretary of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings, said: “There are some good signs that people are talking about training and slowly getting the conservation and energy agendas to line up, but the biggest danger is the overall reduction in public spending.”
“It is particularly tough for historic environment services at local level,” said Pugh. “With funding under pressure and all the political parties saying they want to let local authorities make the decisions, it puts them and us in a difficult position. There is anecdotal evidence that posts are being lost and services cut left, right and centre.”
