Heritage Lottery Fund: Townscape Heritage Initiative
Overview
This Programme supports partnerships of local, regional and national interests that aim to regenerate economically disadvantaged historic areas for the benefit of local residents, workers and visitors.
Under this programme, they fund applications from:
- Not-for-profit organisations
- Partnerships led by not-for-profit organisations.
They expect that an applicant will work with a range of partners in delivering a Townscape Heritage scheme, whether they apply as a single body (for example, a local authority) or as a formal partnership. If you are applying as a formal partnership, you will need to nominate a lead applicant. The lead applicant should provide a signed partnership agreement showing the involvement of each partner and how the scheme will be managed.
Here are some examples of the types of organisations they fund:
- Local authorities
- Charities or trusts such as building
- Preservation trusts
- Other public sector organisations
- Community Interest Companies
- Community/parish councils;
- Social enterprises
- Community or voluntary groups.
Central to the delivery of a Townscape Heritage scheme is a joint funding pot, made up of their grant, together with your funds and funds from other partners from which grants are made.
You can spend this funding either directly by ordering and managing work yourselves, and/ or by providing grants to others, including private owners or for-profit organisations, to carry out work to their properties where they contribute to the aims of the overall scheme. In such instances, they expect public benefit to be greater than private gain. These are known as third-party grants.
What they fund
They can fund activities to help people engage with heritage, including:
- Providing training in traditional conservation skills for contractors and trainees
- Bringing the community together to explore their heritage through, for example, open days, exhibitions and tours
- Demonstrations of good maintenance techniques for property owners.
They also support work to help you develop and run your project, such as:
- Valuations, professional fees, or the costs associated with getting statutory permissions
- Research and strategic planning work to safeguard the long-term approach to conservation
- Preparing a Conservation Area Management Plan
- Employing project staff.