This Historic Towns and Villages Forum seminar-workshop is an exciting opportunity to look at how heritage assets and Heritage at Risk can be brought back into viable new uses.  Following our popular seminar in March 2019 on ‘Protecting our Heritage Assets’, we will explore how to encourage more creative and economically viable solutions for heritage preservation and regeneration.

As the role of preservation trusts and community-led action are increasingly important and welcomed by the government and its statutory bodies, examining the ‘conservation deficit’ is very timely.

Where this financial dilemma has previously been met by a reliance on grant funding, this event will look at how best to work with market forces to incorporate new land uses or development (whether residential, workspace, retail etc.). Community uses  such as cafes, IT hubs, dark rooms and gallery space are important in bringing places back to life, and commercial approaches could help to make projects more sustainable financially. So what are the trade-offs between changes to an asset or its setting and its preservation?

For communities and local trusts, this is an important issue to consider in preparing plans to save local heritage. For colleagues in local government, this is an opportunity to consider how to balance change and preservation.

Delegates will learn about:

• The best approaches to seeking heritage grant funding
• The role of the property market in enabling heritage to be saved and better managed
• How incorporating commercial development could sustain major national heritage assets
• How to assess the future life of a heritage asset
• 3 innovative community-led case studies of buildings and their new lives, plus

A hands-on workshop to debate what the acceptable trade-offs would be.