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Benefits to Society

The historic environment can have a positive influence on a wide range of local activities including regeneration, housing, education, economic development and community engagement. It can also contribute towards the achievement of the shared priorities agreed between central and local government.

Sustainable Communities
The historic environment contributes to quality of life. It has economic, social, educational, spiritual and amenity values.  Historic places give people a past and a future. They provide identity, atmosphere, interest and stories. Nine out of ten people think that their local area counts as much as 'heritage' features such as castles and stately homes.
Reusing the historic environment, particularly buildings, lies at the heart of creating sustainable communities and minimises the exploitation of resources. People are immensely proud of their local history. Surviving heritage, even if hidden below ground, is synonymous with local identity. People dont always express how much they value a place until it is threatened. Heritage is a fundamental element that contributes towards local character and distinctiveness.
The historic environment is a powerful focus for community action. Outcomes such as increased community cohesion and greater social inclusion can be achieved through a renewed focus on the historic environment. Involving communities at a grass roots level in their local heritage can be a vital medium in bringing communities together through a shared understanding of their diverse histories.
Community means different things to different people. Belonging to a certain community should not make it exclusive. Part of what the historic environment can achieve for communities is not just a greater appreciation of a shared past for those who already actively belong to a community.  It is also the wider dissemination of understanding about that group to those who are on the margins of it or outside of it, ensuring it is more inclusive and accessible.
Local Authorities play a vital role in community life. They are the legitimate democratic body by which the different interests of various communities within a specific area can be reconciled and they have a vital role in 'place-shaping' by improving the economic, social and environmental well-being of an area and its communities. There is currently a great focus in national and regional policy on building local communities. In the South East this is particularly prevalent with three major growth areas in the region and several other 'growth point's having been offered to government for consideration in 2006. There is sector-wide commitment to maximising the benefits of incorporating local history into the building of new communities in these areas. It helps create a sense of pride in the community and a shared sense of belonging, helping people identify with the place they live and with their neighbours. Equally, the historic environment has the power to alert a community to what is inspiring about its past and to enthuse them to cherish their local environment and feel engaged with it. The sector is working both regionally and nationally with other cultural agencies to ensure appropriate levels of cultural provision are developed where new homes and communities are built, and that culture is seen to be as vital as any other infrastructure requirements. The national Where we live! initiative is seeing the cultural sector work with a wide range of partners, including local authorities, planners and developers, to provide and support cultural provision that can change lives and communities for the better. www.wherewelive.org.uk

Economic Development
The historic environment is an asset not a liability. It attracts companies to locate, businesses to invest and tourists to visit. Market values in historic areas are higher than elsewhere. Heritage is the bedrock of our tourism industry. 
Tourism is vital to the health of the economy in the South East and nine of the Top 20 most visited National Trust properties are in the region.  The regions pay-for-entry properties attract 3.7 million visits a year.
The historic environment has a key role to play in enhancing the prosperity of communities and places. This is recognised in a variety of regional strategies such as the Regional Economic Strategy and the South East Plan. Investment in the historic environment can contribute directly to economic prosperity through the provision of jobs and through bringing about increased tourism activity. It can also contribute indirectly by giving a place local distinctiveness and character, thereby increasing the quality of life it offers and its attractiveness to businesses and the highly skilled workforce they need.
The South East is considered an affluent area and the key challenge for the region is to maintain this relative prosperity, in the face of pressures to accommodate population growth, whilst also minimising environmental impact.
Central to the regeneration and renewal of local places has been the need to promote the benefits of finding viable economic uses for historic buildings. In the South East this has been particularly important due to the high demand for housing. Successful schemes incorporating substantial historic buildings have been seen in places such as Royal Clarence Yard in Gosport. In parallel to this, however, it has also been important to recognise that there will always be a demand for new buildings - the architecture of today leaving its own legacy as the heritage of tomorrow. The sector has worked hard to promote building in context so that new buildings are designed to complement the old.
Local authorities have a major role to play in enhancing the economic, social and environmental well-being of the communities they serve. One way in which they are expected to do this is through the on-going development of their Local Area Agreement and the work of the Local Strategic Partnership.  The sector needs to ensure that the benefits of the historic environment are recognised within these forums in order to play its full role in the development of local place making. 
West Sussex is one example of an area that has recognised and embraced the rich contribution heritage makes to its quality of life. The county has included outcomes to maximise its potential in their Local Area Agreement and through research into the sectors economic contribution to the county.

Learning and Skills
The historic environment is a local educational resource for people of all ages. For example, archaeological remains can be used to explain the history of a place and the communities that have lived there, so helping to make people feel at home.
In 2005-06, English Heritage welcomed 186,923 free educational visitors to its South East properties, an increase of 3,000 since the previous year. The National Trust hosted 48,704 individual educational visitors. The Historic Houses Association had 30 formal educational programmes running at its properties in the South East. MLA South East calculated that at least 400,000 South East school children used museums between 2002 and 2004
The historic environment has an important place in local cultural activities. Local environments that are understood and valued tend to be better looked after than those that are not linked to communities, and can help to foster civic responsibility and citizenship. This in turn can have positive implications for anti-social behaviour problems and community well-being. The historic environment contributes to everybody's quality of life.
Education has two main strands: helping people to understand and learn from the historic environment and thereby to want to care for it; and training the professionals, craftspeople and operational staff within the sector. The first involves using our historic assets to attract schools, adults and families to want to visit and engage with these historic places and take something away which enhances their lives and brings the past alive. This can be achieved through school and educational group visits, workshops, tours and activities at historic sites; family and adult learning events, such as the Festival of History and Heritage Open Days; and community learning programmes that reach the disadvantaged or under-represented groups through heritage outreach projects. The second strand focuses on education, training and continuing development for historic environment professionals, craftspeople and operational staff. Highly specialist skill sets and professional sub-divisions exist within the historic environment and those need to be retained, but there is an increasing demand to look at what skills will be necessary in future to respond to changes in the historic environment.  English Heritage is working closely with the Construction Industry Training Board, National Heritage Training Group, the Learning and Skills Council and other regional partners such as the Weald and Downland Museum and the West Dean College to try to find ways of addressing skills needs and shortages within the sector. The results of recent research into craft skills needs in the region can be found at www.helm.org.uk/upload/pdf/craft_skills_report.pdf 
Calculating the overall levels of employment the historic environment sector provides in the region is difficult, though some statistics are available to give a good indication. In May/June 2006, figures indicate that English Heritage, the National Trust, the Historic Houses Association and the museums and archives sector together directly provided over 9,000 jobs in the region. In addition the sector benefits from employees working in traditional construction and craft skills, in local authority historic environment services, in tourism (national figures indicate an average of 46 staff per attraction) and many more.

Community Engagement
A communitys engagement with its historic environment is often about much more than visiting a heritage site. In fact, the role that communities play in helping the sector to manage the historic environment is immense, in particular the contribution made by the many thousands of volunteers working in the region.  The exact number of volunteers supporting the sector is difficult to ascertain. However, this year the Taking Part Survey has attempted to measure the number of volunteers engaged in the historic environment nationally. In addition, the National Trust, the largest heritage charity in the country to benefit from the work of volunteers, had a workforce of over 47,000 volunteers nationally in 2005-06, 7,500 of which are in the South East alone. Volunteer engagement with the sector takes many forms, from specific projects designed by larger organisations like the National Trust, right through to small, local groups engaging with the planning process on behalf of their community.  The capacity of both the voluntary sector and the public authorities they seek to engage with is limited, however, and worthwhile engagement relies on establishing effective working relationships between them. Historic Environment Champions are local authority elected members that play a vital role in bridging communication between the two.
The historic environment is a focus for public commitment and active civic engagement. Today's heritage movement has its roots in community activism with local groups speaking up for what they care about.  England has around 400,000 volunteers looking after and explaining our heritage. This is probably the biggest heritage voluntary sector in Europe and they are vital to maintaining our historic environment.
In 2005, the National Trust benefited from the work of 7,494 volunteers in the South East, who contributed a total of 412,000 man-hours and saved the NT approximately 2.56 million. MLA South East estimates that at least 7,000 volunteers contributed to the running of the regions museums.

Regeneration
Our surroundings matter. The historic environment adds value to regeneration projects. Understanding how places change, what makes them distinctive and the significance of their history is the key to regeneration. New development occurs in historic settings, not in isolation. High quality and imaginative new design that relates to its context will have greater aesthetic, economic and social value.
The historic environments contribution to the regeneration of communities and places has long been advocated and significant sums of funding available to the sector have been awarded for this very purpose. English Heritage and the Heritage Lottery Fund have operated area-based enhancement schemes to kick-start the regeneration process in priority areas, such as Gravesend. Similarly, grants to individual buildings have inspired renewed vigour and prosperity in some communities, such as the restoration of the De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill. Projects on a more local level can also have a significant impact on a given community. Central to the regeneration and renewal of local places has been the need to promote the benefits of finding viable economic uses for historic buildings.
The historic environment contributes to successful regeneration because people enjoy living in old places with a story to tell and it contributes to:
Investment: Historic places attract companies to locate, people to live, businesses to invest and tourists to visit. Market values in historic areas are higher than elsewhere.
Sense of place: People enjoy living in historic places. There is often greater community cohesion.
Sustainability: Re-use of historic buildings minimises the exploitation of resources. There is evidence of lower maintenance costs for older houses.
Quality of life: The historic environment contributes to quality of life and enriches peopleҒs understanding of the diversity and changing nature of their community.
 

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