How should heritage be funded? What are the opportunities and challenges around public, private and philanthropic funding models? These are some of the key questions underpinning the 2024 Heritage Debate. This year the The Historic Environment Forum worked in partnership with The Heritage Alliance to produce a series of case studies which will contribute to the debate – sharing different models of funding heritage, as well as a diversity of views on the subject.
Elizabeth Fathi, Director of The Trust Partnership
What type of funding has been effective in supporting your work?
The Almshouse Association represents 1600 member almshouse charities in England and Wales. Out of 30,000 dwellings, 36 are Grade I Listed, 90 are Grade II* Listed and 522 are Grade II Listed. The oldest almshouse still used for its original purpose dates back to 1132.
Funding for works to the fabric of the historic almshouse buildings generally comes from two sources: endowment or loans (Charity Bank, Charities Aid Foundation Bank and The Almshouse Association providing the main sources of loans). Grants may be available for re-modelling through Homes England – up to 30% of the project cost.
What setbacks have you experienced related to funding?
- Almshouse charities applying for grants from Homes England are then required to be regulated by the Regulator of Social Housing which imposes potentially burdensome and disproportionate regulatory requirements in the day-to-day management of the almshouses. This can lead to problems recruiting and retaining Trustees with resulting threats to the sustainability of the charity.
- Voluntary trustees often require professional assistance in preparing the paperwork required for the funding applications. This can lead to substantial additional costs, time and volunteer energy for the charity before funding is approved (or not).
- Planning consent may be required prior to a funding decision, leading to charitable financial spend and commitment before certainty of grant approval.
- Planners and Conservation Officers are not always of like-mind in their approach or assessment of Listed Building/planning applications. Policies are not always uniformly applied.
What solutions are required to address funding challenges in heritage?
- Charitable governing documents usually impose a duty on almshouse Trustees to use the income of the charity to look after the almshouses. Trustees are increasingly taking the view that older historic buildings are more expensive and time-consuming to maintain. This can lead to a decision to sell the historic buildings and build new almshouses. The lower standard of new build, perhaps with a 50 – 75 year maximum lifespan poses an existential threat to the charity unless it can save sufficient income to build new again in 50 – 75 years. Environmentally this is not ideal. Support for Trustees in the form of free professional advice, and training for planners/conservation officers when assessing plans for heritage assets being used for their original charitable purpose, would go a long way in inspiring and assisting Trustees to retain and adapt their existing historic buildings.
- A government incentive to continue to use heritage buildings would be a positive step and of benefit to the environment/carbon reduction.
- The Netherlands provides an interesting solution to retaining heritage almshouses by providing government funding annually to the Trustees to retain the buildings as heritage assets (open to the public) and continued use as charitable housing. The almshouse takes the income from the contributions made by residents and the government heritage funding grant to maintain the historic almshouse building to an agreed standard.
- Partnership arrangements between almshouse charities and existing historic expert organisations (such as The Georgian Society, The Victorian Society, the Listed Building Owners Club etc) would be a helpful way of bringing expertise and shared experience to almshouse charity Trustees.
- Encouraging philanthropists and corporate social responsibility investors to invest in heritage.
- Working with investment fund managers to put funds into heritage-focussed Real estate investment trusts (REITs) and heritage social impact bonds offering investors a lower financial return for a higher social/environmental impact from their investment.
- Working with investment fund managers to add historic building retention (rather than building new) as part of the standard ESG (Environment, Social, Governance) benchmark rating for investors.
- Looking at partnerships between prevention of homelessness charities/organisations and historic building owners to keep heritage buildings in use which would benefit the building (maintenance) and the long-term retention of the heritage asset.
