All of us who manage, work or volunteer for the UK’s heritage know how central it is to people, communities and places.

However, the challenging economic environment and the cost of living crisis is impacting all of you and placing heritage at risk.

I know that many of you are struggling to meet existing commitments, that longer-term development projects are being put on hold to deal with immediate needs and many organisations don’t have the capacity to manage and mitigate the risks facing the sector.

We are committed to supporting you where we can and will be as flexible as possible to find a way through these challenging times. We cannot address all the issues or replace long-term revenue funding, but we do have multiple ways to help you navigate through some of these immediate and pressing concerns. 

If rising prices are threatening the progress or viability of your project, please get in touch and we’ll do everything we can to help you.

Our support

Open programmes

We support the full breadth of heritage through our open programmes and this funding remains available to apply for at any time.

Many of you may feel cautious in the current climate, but our teams are there to support and advise. If inflation has impacted your plans, it is worth contacting us, as your project may be the best way of addressing the needs of that heritage, especially if it’s at risk.

Remember, we also support development costs, so you can plan in confidence where you are sure of the viability of your project.

In addition, earlier this year we launched a refreshed resilience and recovery support offer and over the past six months we’ve awarded £6.7million worth of resilience-related grants.

The range of things you can apply for is broad, including bringing in specialist support or creating the capacity you need to deal with both immediate challenges and longer-term ambitions. So do please take a look, as it may provide the flexible and rapid support you need – decision times start from within eight weeks.

A flexible approach

We have also increased our flexibility and support for projects in development or delivery, particularly for those whose costs have increased due to inflationary pressures.

If rising prices are threatening the progress or viability of your project, please get in touch and we’ll do everything we can to help you in considering how you might manage unforeseen increases.

Since January, we’ve helped keep heritage projects on track with an additional £15.6m of support for requested changes to project scope or cost, and we can support grant increases where there is a clear need.

We’re also providing increased advice and mentorship from our specialist consultants.

We will try to give clear advice when we cannot provide financial or other support, including signposting to other sources where appropriate.

Strategic investments

Alongside this targeted support, we’re investing in the capacity and resilience of the sector more broadly. Our Digital Skills for Heritage initiative continues to deliver resources and training to help raise the digital confidence of heritage organisations.

And earlier this year we invested a further £1m in our business support and enterprise development programmes, taking our total investment to £6m.

These programmes are offering support to heritage organisations across the UK to help you respond to the ongoing cost of living crisis. In some cases, programmes are still open to new participants, providing bespoke consultancy, resources and tools for your specific needs and challenges.

Working together

Our teams across the UK will do as much as possible to provide the support you need, but clearly we will not be able to provide funds for every heritage project, site, collection or asset that is struggling in these difficult times.

We will try to give clear advice when we cannot provide financial or other support, including signposting to other sources where appropriate.

We’re also working hard to ensure our new 10-year strategy – which we’ll launch early next year – continues to provide the support, expertise and innovation our heritage sector needs to make it through these challenging times and thrive in the months and years ahead.    

I want to thank everyone who responded to our invitation to help shape our new strategy over the summer. The responses exceeded our expectations in both number and in the passion they demonstrated for sustaining our heritage for the future. I look forward to sharing our ambitious new vision with you next year.

In the meantime – explore the funding we have available to help you protect and conserve the UK’s heritage right now, and get in touch with us if you have any concerns or need advice.