This year, we are working on a national pilot study to develop a Design Code to guide the reuse of historic textile mills in the North-West. Many weaving mills are declining or at risk of total loss. The research project aims to showcase how Design Codes (which are usually adopted as local planning policy) can be used for similar historic building types across a wide area, setting the standard of design and providing certainty at planning.

We also work on a lot of Conservation Management Plans (CMP) for heritage sites, which are policy documents that explain why somewhere is significant, and how this significance should be managed.

Recently, we produced a CMP for the York City Walls to aid sensitive adaptation and to accommodate modern requirements. A defining feature of York’s historic townscape, their management requires an interdisciplinary approach, engaging with conservation, archaeology, tourism, businesses and setting. Having a robust set of policies ensures that change can be managed consistently and sensitively in the long term.

We have also just finished a CMP for a large country house and agricultural estate in Trafford. Here, we explored how to make CMPs more resilient by focusing on how they can successfully be implemented. We used extensive stakeholder engagement and innovative digital techniques to improve accessibility, useability and future flexibility.

A significant part of my job is the development of strategic partnerships across government and the law enforcement and heritage sectors in order to identify opportunities to shape new policies that will help us to deliver effective measures to protect heritage assets and the wider historic environment from the threat of crime and anti-social behaviour.

Policy and advocacy work is at the heart of Historic Houses. We were founded as a lobbying organisation just over 50 years ago, and it’s still core to our work today. We aim to create a better fiscal and regulatory framework for independent historic houses – which, for our members, means a more supportive fiscal framework (we’ve campaigned on reforming Heritage Maintenance Funds, on targeted VAT rebate schemes for repairs and maintenance to listed buildings, and the like), as well as a smarter regulatory framework. The majority of our members are rural SMEs, and they want it to be easier to install clean energy, to adapt buildings for residential or commercial use to support the main heritage asset, and to not be weighed down by red tape and paperwork.

The biggest existential issue our members are facing at the moment is around insurance. Premiums have skyrocketed in recent years, and some Historic Houses places are struggling to meet these costs. Insurance of highly listed buildings is obviously extremely important, so we’re actively flagging this issue to government and Historic England to highlight the problems and to lobby on potential mitigation measures.

So, we cover a lot of policy areas: there’s never a dull day!

Like many similar organisations we face a serous demographic and engagement challenge and that is reflected in our own governance issues. This s a mix of changing public tastes and priorities, ageing volunteers, reduced rates of volunteering post Covid, cost of living pressures etc. The fanatical drive of 1960s/1970s preservationists (which saved many vessels) reflects its time and is not easily replicable. New forms of engagement and wider community appeal are needed if surviving heritage is to be cared for effectively.

The first challenge for MHT was to renew the Board and to be effective that needed to be in terms of age and diversity. After an external review in early 2022, honorary roles were established so that those who had given many years of service could continue to do so in an advisory role while a block of 4 vacant Trustee places created were the subject of a younger Trustee recruitment drive. The outcome was a new Board with 50% gender diversity and a much lower average age, working alongside a young part time staff member. This is not the end of the story; in a similar cycle, other Trustees with the longest  experience will soon need to consider moving on and replacements attracted.