Heritage Declares has issued it April Newsletter with topics covering all the latest news, including Heritage Declares at Futurebuild and an update signpost on the The UK Climate Resilience Programme (UKCR).
… The programme was a multi and interdisciplinary effort that funded over sixty projects…
Heritage Declares writes:
UK Climate Resilience Final Conference
The UK Climate Resilience Programme (UKCR) was a four year project running from 2018 that sought to quantify risks from climate change, build climate resilience for the UK and produce outputs to support decision making.
The programme was a multi and interdisciplinary effort that funded over sixty projects covering a broad range of topics. The Programme’s Final Conference was held on 8th and 9th of March at the Wellcome Collection in London.
Cultural heritage formed a significant proportion of the projects funded by the UK Climate Resilience Programme and this was reflected over the two days of the conference.
Day 1 looked at Research Advancements, with the afternoon session moderated by Professor Nick Pidgeon of Cardiff University.
This included presentations from Mike Davies’ project Climacare which established, for example, that the construction age of care home buildings was critical in moderating overheating exposure due to thermal mass. Pre 1930’s buildings, for example, were significantly less likely to overheat.
Clandage consisted of 3 case studies based in Cumbria, Staffordshire and the Outer Hebridies and evaluated how community resilience could be built through cultural, social and technological adaptations facilitated by storytelling, craft and poetry workshops, oral history, archival research and interviews.
Climate Resilient Church Buildings was presented by a University of Manchester researcher (Chris Walsh) embedded within the Church of England. He reported that C. of E. has an ambitious net zero programme (net zero by 2030). They understand that waiting to repair building fabric in response to climatic impacts is likely to be 8.7 times more expensive than if addressed beforehand. The speaker revealed that their estate consists of c. 16,000 buildings, 78% are listed (many Grade I) and that 5,500 of their buildings are on Historic England’s ‘At Risk’ register.
The C. Of E. is in a unique position as their churches are deeply connected to isolated rural communities and the organisation is a huge repository of knowledge due to its long working relationship with heritage professionals already engaged with their buildings. Their churches are already helping communities to adapt to the impacts of climate change. St Lawrence Priory in Snaith, for example, provided refuge for 150 people for three weeks (food, shelter, clothing) following the Snaith flood of 2019.
Day 2 looked at Implications for Practice & Policy.
Generally it was acknowledged that the arts and cultural heritage had a huge role in helping communities make sense of complex ideas and what resilience to climactic impacts looks (and has looked) like. Central to this is the importance of Place, how places change, how they are relatable/comparable especially with regard to vulnerability and (in)equality.
Looking to the future, UKCR seemed keen to know how best to relate to campaign groups, feeling that many involved in their organisation cannot be seen to be involved with XR or Just Stop Oil (whose aims are solely mitigatory) however much they sympathise with their point of view.
They identified gaps in research and implementation, wanting to understand the narrative of what an adaptive UK will look like and how to better include the needs of communities and individuals in policy.
The April Newsletter headings include:
- The Big One- Extinction Rebellion UK
- Elain Harwood
- Twentieth Century Society Risk List
- M&S Oxford Street public inquiry
- London Starts Here
- Welsh School of Architecture teaching position
- Material Reform : Building for a Post-Carbon Future
- UK Climate Resilience Final Conference
- Any thoughts? Have you got any thoughts on the April News on Heritage and the Climate Crisis? Or suggestions for the next post? Leave them in the comments below or tweet us @HeritageDecl
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For more background see ukclimateresilience.org
