News & Views

Last week I was a panellist at an EDAS organised online event entitled “Unlocking the potential of Scotland’s heritage: the economic value of heritage”. Chaired by Neil McInroy, the event was the beginnings of a process of consultation for Historic Environment Scotland‘s (HES) new strategy. Formal consultation will launch soon and run to approximately the end of the year. It is well worth having your say given its ambitions, and to an extent, claimed radicalism (‘rethinking, to be a vehicle for change and deliver other gains’).

Living in Stirling, “big” heritage is all around us (Stirling Castle, Bannockburn, Wallace Monument), but it is also the smaller parts, the buildings, streetscapes, collections, that so much make the city and place of Stirling. And that is true across Scotland and beyond. My academic interest in heritage stems more from these micro-scale components of a place – the Burton shops, Marks and Spencer fascias, artwork that becomes iconic to a place, shop-houses, the reuse of buildings, older formats – than the big national treasures (though at a personal level I love visiting them). So it was interesting to be part of event that started with the “big” assets, but sought to place them in their local context.

The event comprised of four scene-setting presentations from HES followed by a five-member panel moderated by Neil McInroy. The panellists all represented organisations that partner with HES in various fields – in my case Scotland’s Towns Partnership and the role of place. The slides used by HES and a recording of the event will be up on EDAS’ website.

I was fortunate to get an advanced copy of a late draft of the HES strategy. It is an interesting read, strong on many things, including a focus on place. The detail of what this means is not covered in a high-level strategy, but the links possible are very clear. The strategy aligns well with STP’s towns and place agenda. Indeed all panellists acknowledged the fit with their own work.

Ahead of the event I tried to think about heritage and its (economic) value. I came up with three things, the first two of which were central foci of the HES presentations:

1. Visitors to attractions; their volume, spend and subject and context understanding;
2. Attractions as places; the spill-over effect in terms of jobs, food and beverage, accommodation, retail etc that heritage can bring and how this can build community wealth and local networks;
3. Places as attractions; the broader place that attractions sit in or link to, the heritage more widely of these towns/places, and the need to ensure better, healthier, stronger, greener places.

It was an interesting session with lots more that could have been discussed. I tried in my comments as panellist to encourage the strategy and operations to go further in three ways:

1. To be more detailed about place as a concept and to focus on sustainable, liveable and productive places and what heritage can deliver for these at a local level;
2. To build on the partnership theme of the day to develop a coordinated coalition to align funding and taxation at national, regional and local levels to recognise the value of heritage (and town centres). We have to make it easier and cheaper to use and reuse older buildings and this does mean addressing taxation inequities;
3. To recognise that whilst the strategy is a good thing, we don’t have to wait to make changes. Operational changes can produce valuable impacts now.

The example of the final point came from one of the HES speakers who noted a tension between the need for HES as an organisation to deliver at scale versus the role of local suppliers. I recognise the point but for me, if we are serious about place (and heritage’s role in this), then there is no tension. We simply have to move to localism and building community strength.

This final point does not only apply to HES of course; it is applicable to many/all organisations that claim to be ‘place’ focused. Far too many talk about place but are not using the tools at their disposal to strengthen places.

You can visit Leigh’s blog here.

Professor Leigh Sparks is the Chair of Scotland’s Towns Partnership and a professor at the University of Stirling.