The Heritage Lottery Fund is developing their Strategic Funding Framework 2019-2024 and, as part of this, held a consultation event with stakeholders at Carlisle on 13th February 2018 that I attended.
At this consultation meeting there appeared to be consensus that heritage is important in creating a sense of ‘place’ that is important in ‘well-being’ and economic development. This was certainly the view that we took at Copeland Borough Council when I was Finance Director and then Strategic Director in the 1990s during which time we improved the historic harbour and town centre of Whitehaven and built the Beacon Heritage Centre.
The discussion on ‘outcomes’ struck a chord with work that I have done with housing associations in ‘shaping places’. Many housing associations have found that building new homes and improving homes to the ‘decent homes standard’ are only part of what is required to promote ‘well-being’ in a community and have therefore engaged with ‘place shaping’ – working with other agencies to promote ‘well-being’. Similarly, heritage projects such as preserving historic buildings, archaeological investigations and heritage projects could also be activities that are part of broader initiatives involving partnership with other agencies.
During the discussion on ‘priorities for people’ I was surprised that no one mentioned the potential of using the Internet and social networking. When I raised this, it became apparent that the organisations represented in the group made very little use of the Internet or social networking. I would have thought that the scope for the Heritage Lottery Fund and heritage organisations generally to use the Internet and social media was considerable, especially in engaging with people in younger age groups.
The purpose of this briefing paper is to summarise the proposals for the new Strategic Funding Framework and the discussion that took place at the consultation event and to provide some commentary.
Brough Castle in Cumbria.
The Heritage Lottery Fund is out to consultation on its Strategic Funding Framework 2019-24.
The deadline for responding to the consultation is 22nd March 2018.
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