The Heritage Alliance (THA) has thanked the Heritage Minister John Glen, and delegates at its recent Heritage Day, where the minister launched his 2017 Heritage Statement, with the IHBC welcoming discussions on proposals that include:
- A new Heritage Council chaired by the Minister, to emphasise the value of the historic environment, build consensus and ensure greater coordination
- The eight new Heritage Action Zones (HAZs): Bishop Auckland, Dewsbury Living Market Town, Greater Grimsby, North Lowestoft Heritage Quarter, Rochdale Town Centre, Stockton and Darlington Railway, Stoke-on-Trent, and Walworth in Southwark
- Celebrating Historic England’s Angel Awards and congratulating the ‘overall winner this year – the magnificent Piece Hall’.
- A new community heritage scheme ‘to enable local communities to identify, mark and celebrate the events, people and places that are important to them
- A new World Heritage Wall to Wall Collaboration linking our Hadrian’s Wall experts with their Great Wall of China counterparts,
- On tax relief and incentives, a commitment to ‘continue to work with the Treasury to keep under review the scope for possible changes’ and
- To explore better protection ‘while an application for listing is being considered’.
IHBC President David McDonald, who attend the event for the Institute, said: ‘I am pleased to welcome the Government’s Heritage Statement. It is heartening to see that there is support for heritage in these politically volatile times. The proposed new Heritage Council is a positive move, and I hope that the IHBC will be able to participate fully when it is set up.’
‘I’m sure that the introduction of interim protection for sites and buildings during the listing process will also have widespread support from IHBC Members’.
Read the Minister’s speech and view the Heritage Statement
