Historic England have just published the 2017 Heritage Counts report, and it should be required reading for our Councillors, especially the Sidmouth ones.
This is an extract
Local heritage assets can play a critical role in successful regeneration projects. Heritage-led regeneration projects are where a new viable economic use is found for historic buildings, offering owners or developers a return on their investment whilst maintaining the conservation value of the heritage asset. (Deloitte, 2017).
Investing in the historic environment generates economic returns for local places.
On average, £1 of public sector expenditure on heritage-led regeneration generates £1.60 additional economic activity over a ten year period (AMION and Locum Consulting, 2010).
People spend more in their local economy after investment in the historic environment
– In areas that had received investment in the historic environment, approximately one in five visitors in a survey of 1,000 stated they spent more in an area after investment in the historic environment than they did before. One in four businesses stated that the historic environment investment had directly led to an increase in business turnover (AMION and Locum Consulting, 2010).
There are so many things we could do to boost our local economy by building on (historic) buildings!
Architecture could be used to power all sorts of activities to boost visitor numbers so why aren’t we capitalising on it?
