Sustainable Futures Wright & Wright - Flipbook - Page 21
30 years of National Lottery heritage funding
Eilish McGuinness
‘Heritage 2033 will
encourage projects
to focus on reuse,
rather than new
build and support
passive approaches
to heating
and cooling’
Since its launch in November 1994,
the UK’s National Lottery has raised
over £50 billion for good causes. Of this,
the National Lottery Heritage Fund has
distributed £8.6 billion to more than
47,000 heritage projects across the UK.
Taken together, these projects have
made an incredible difference to
heritage, people, communities and the
environment across the length and
breadth of the UK.
The range of projects supported
over the last 30 years is hugely
diverse, from Clevedon Pier in North
Somerset, built in the 1860s using
railway lines discarded from Brunel’s
broad-gauge South Wales Railway;
to Great Yarmouth’s Winter Gardens,
the country’s only surviving seaside
cast iron and glass winter gardens;
to the RSPB Forsinard Flows National
Nature Reserve, the most intact and
extensive blanket bog system in the
world, stretching across Caithness
and Sutherland in the far north of
Scotland. The impact of National
Lottery funding on the UK’s heritage
has been enormous.
As the largest funder of UK heritage,
the National Lottery Heritage Fund
invests money raised by National
Lottery players across the UK, working
with governments, local authorities
and statutory agencies, as well as
other National Lottery distributors.
The Heritage Fund awards 20% of the
good causes income raised by National
Lottery players to heritage projects.
This encompasses everything from the
historic and natural environment to
museums, libraries and archives.
From the UK’s industrial legacy to
cultural traditions, stories, memories,
celebrations and more. Heritage can
be anything from the past that people
value and want to pass on to future
generations.
As well as looking back at 30 years of
National Lottery funding activity, it is
also a time to look forward. Heritage
2033, the Heritage Fund’s ten year
strategy, sets out its ambitions to
support projects of all sizes that connect
people and communities to the UK’s
heritage. It sets out how the Heritage
Fund will invest in places, not just
individual projects, to bring about
benefits for people and the natural
environment in support of its vision
for heritage to be valued, cared for and
sustained for everyone, now and in the
future. Decision making will be guided
by four new investment principles:
saving heritage; inclusion, access and
participation, organisational
sustainability, and protecting the
environment. The strength of focus,
and emphasis on each principle, is down
to applicants to demonstrate.
On environmental sustainability,
specifically, Heritage 2033 focuses on
reducing negative environmental
impacts, helping heritage to adapt to a
changing climate, and contributing to
nature recovery. For the built
environment, we encourage where
possible reusing the wonderful heritage
buildings we already have before
turning to new-build and supporting
passive approaches to heating and
cooling. Historic buildings have
incredible potential to contribute to
nature recovery, expanding the
biodiversity of their natural
environment. As a funder we will
take a flexible approach, adapting and
responding to changing needs and
opportunities, focusing our priorities
through three-year delivery plans across
the lifetime of our ten year strategy.
Over the next 10 years, we aim to
invest £3.6 billion raised for good causes
by National Lottery players in heritage
projects across the UK, enabling
heritage to inspire, challenge, delight
and fascinate, now and in the future,
and making a decisive difference for
people, places and communities.
Opposite:
The remodelled Museum
of the Home in east London,
just one of the thousands of
heritage projects to benefit
from funding from the
National Lottery
30 years of National Lottery heritage funding
21
