C O N T E X T 1 2 2 : N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 1 29 former boroughs, Macclesfield had an established local list, adopted the year before; Congleton had no local list but had been preparing one; and Crewe and Nantwich had a local list as an appendix to the local plan. Parish councils and amenity societies had been consulted and involved to different degrees. Some had made strange nominations. The amenity societies had given reliable and consistent responses. There were lessons for the future. Hundred per cent coverage would not happen; work-groups varied in confidence and competence; submissions needed expert screening before being adopted; and it was a good idea to find a critical friend. After lunch, delegates took two walking tours in the adjacent Castlefields area: the canals or the Liverpool Road Gateway. Later the conference focused on project delivery. Sara Hilton, head of Heritage Lottery Fund NorthWest, discussed ‘Funding Local Action’. Although the economic outlook was still uncertain, she said, the good news for heritage was that lottery ticket sales had remained extremely strong. Additionally the Heritage Lottery Fund’s share of good causes income had increased recently from 16.7 to 20 per cent. These two factors meant that the HLF would have much larger awards budgets in the next few years than they had expected. UK-wide annual awards budgets for 2009–2013 would rise annually from £180 million to £300 million. The regional budgets from 2009–2012 would rise annually from £7.3 million to £10.2 million (the figures for 2012–13 were still to be confirmed). This was heartwarming news after the earlier reports about English Heritage’s budgets. Hilton reminded delegates of the Heritage Lottery Fund’s strategic aims: conservation, engagement and education. Keeping heritage assets in beneficial use had to be set against the background of government cuts and the expectation that communities would provide services previously offered by the state. Historic buildings could be kept in beneficial use, either by involving private enterprise or community groups, at a much reduced cost to the taxpayer. In the north west a range of projects had been funded. Rotunda, in Kirkdale, Liverpool, was a Grade II listed Georgian terrace. Very few historic buildings remained in this deprived area that had been cleared for social housing. The Rotunda community group was the sort of group that the government would be relying on for localism in the Big Society. David Trevis-Smith, chairman of the UK Association of Preservation Trusts (APT), discussed ‘Raising the Stakes: rescuing historic buildings at risk’. He distinguished between the two types of building preservation trust (BPT): the single project or area BPT, which preserved a single building or group of buildings, and the revolving-fund BPT, which preserved buildings in a specific category or buildings within a particular area. The revolving-fund BPT re-invested any surplus into the next project. Recently there had been few examples of revolving-fund BPTs. Community empowerment could raise the stakes. Local referendums would mean that BPTs would be able to challenge unsympathetic development, and the community right to challenge would mean that BPTs would be able to offer to deliver services.Would assets of community value include local lists of heritage assets? BPT projects would help to retain community assets, but would the right to bid mean that buildings went to the highest bidder? ‘Sustainable development’ needed defining. The definition needed to recognise the social, environmental and cultural benefits of heritage-led development, as well as economic ones. Without resources, the aspirations that underpinned the Localism Bill would be undeliverable. The potential role of BPTs to help deliver the localism agenda would need to be recognised, and focused enabling resources would be needed. This would be a good opportunity to incentivise revolvingfund BPTs. Keith Parsons, principal lecturer, University of Central Lancashire Delegates crossing the canal at Castlefield, designated in 1982 as the UK’s first Urban Heritage Park
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