English Heritage’s budget for all restoration work is broadly on the same level as that available to that of the MLA. However, a significant part of EH’s budget is committed to a relatively small number of major, national projects, leaving only about £1.3m per year for restoration of historic buildings in the private sector.
In recent years this EH budget has been declining in real terms, even though the costs of conservation, which include a relatively high labour and skills content, have been rising.
Alongside a reversal of this decrease in EH grant support, a limited Historic Property Maintenance Relief would enable owners to fund more conservation work themselves. The relief would enable owners of historic properties to offset income against the costs of maintenance, with a ceiling on the amount of relief claimed and subject to the provision of agreed public access.
There are two main reasons why such a relief should be supported. The first is that public policy to conserve the built heritage would become more effective, because the cost-effectiveness of private ownership would be more directly enlisted than through complete reliance on a grants-based approach. Owners would be able to carry out conservation work on a timetable and scale that matched their circumstances. By undertaking work over a sustained period, the “stitch in time” approach, and by shopping around for skills at reasonable prices, owners can often carry out conservation work at a lower cost than if it were all to be publicly supported. The second reason is that at current or even improved levels of grant funding, the need for conservation will outstrip the capacity to fund it. If current owners cannot fund this work, then properties will decay and some at least will cease to find opening to the public worthwhile. This loss of access would directly undermine the basic objectives of Government policy to broaden access to our heritage.