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A Heritage Development Trust is a charity or social enterprise that acquires and repurposes vacant or ‘at risk’ historic buildings, turning them into assets for the benefit of local communities. An initiative of the Architectural Heritage Fund, the current Heritage Development Trusts programme is funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund and is designed to build Trusts’ capacity so that they can operate at scale and make a significant impact in the places they work – increasing civic pride, community wellbeing and economic vitality.   

There are now 19 Heritage Development Trusts, covering all four nations of the UK nation, from Caernarfon to Derry, Dunfermline to Redruth.

The Heritage Development Trust model, developed by the Architectural Heritage Fund, is not a prescribed legal structure – organisations can be social enterprises or charities of different forms, e.g. CIOs or CICs.  What Heritage Development Trusts share is a unifying commitment to the reimagining, repair, and reuse of historic buildings of value to their community. They are:

• Multi-building developers: acquiring and managing a portfolio of heritage assets to create an economically sustainable model through their revenue-raising potential;

• Community-based partnerships: arising from the needs of their community, and working in close partnership with local people, local government and local business; and

• Entrepreneurial & Not for Profit: reinvesting their surpluses in development, and creating additional economic, social, environmental and cultural value for their communities.

To learn more about how a Heritage Development Trust works, read this case study on Inner City Trust.

For more information about the Heritage Development Trusts, download our HDTs Profile.

This is the story of how Valley Heritage revived a former bank building on their High Street.