IHBC Yearbook 2022

5 FOREWORD I T IS a privilege to introduce the IHBC Yearbook and highlight its pressing focus on ‘Heritage on the Edge’. In the past two years the Yearbook rightly covered our collective response to the crisis wrought by the pandemic, including the positive partnership working across the sector. At the Heritage Fund we delivered our £50 million Heritage Emergency Fund across the UK, and then partnered with governments in England, Northern Ireland and Wales to distribute funding on their behalf. We drew on our sector’s collective expertise, including IHBC, to work with governments to invest and protect heritage and support communities. As doors re-opened, visitors, volunteers and communities were hungry to reengage and return to historic places, cultural landscapes, parks, gardens and local high streets. Covid illustrated how important our local, historic places are, but also illustrated the fragility of that heritage. In a challenging economic and social environment, and with the underlying pressures of climate change, that fragility remains – heritage is indeed on the edge. It is exactly the right time for IHBC to tackle the challenges head- on; embracing innovation so that the sector keeps pace, and harnessing the opportunities to promote the benefits of heritage. In the midst of the challenges there are seeds of hope, and we can shape, restore and revitalise our historic places, to move heritage from ‘the edge’ to its place at the centre of our environment and communities. At the Heritage Fund we continue to champion innovation and collaboration, but also want to define our vision which will shape our significant heritage investment over the longer term. We plan to do that in partnership, building on what we learned during the crisis, and providing resilience and capacity- building support to organisations to plan for the future. We are keen to share knowledge from our funding, research and data, so that there is a wider benefit to our heritage. I know that the IHBC themes in the Yearbook and at the summer school will provide rich material to share and help understand the challenges and how we might respond. The urgent challenge of climate change and adaptation is one where we must have a shared response, to better deploy knowledge and expertise from the public, private and voluntary sectors. We know that some solutions require us to look back to our shared past to secure our future – such as using traditional forms of construction or maintenance practices. The Heritage Fund supported Fountains Abbey partnership in Skell Valley, North Yorkshire, created meadows and a pond system to reduce the flood risk to the 800-year-old monastic ruins and also created new visitor experiences. Our investment in projects for historic building reuse, with their embodied energy, funding peatland conservation and restoration, which protect valuable carbon sinks, ensures we are reducing the impacts of climate change. Importantly, our focus on people ensures greater awareness of the need to protect our fragile heritage places. We want to find the sustainable solutions for heritage at risk, working in collaboration with a range of partners from public bodies, trusts, community groups, and through the Heritage Enterprise approach, commercial bodies. We want our investment to support recovery, resilience, and inclusive economic growth, while making a positive difference to the environment and communities. We should not underestimate the scale of the challenges or the pace of change required. We will need to build creative, multi-disciplinary partnerships and new skills to deliver for the UK’s heritage. That is why the IHBC focus this year is so important, and I wish members well in considering these important themes. Eilish McGuinness, Chief Executive National Lottery Heritage Fund