Welcome | The Architectural Heritage Fund

My second year as Chair has been as enjoyable as the first and has enabled me to deepen my knowledge of the work of the AHF across the UK. As I have done so, I have become ever more convinced of the importance and relevance of the work that the AHF does, and impressed by the knowledge, enthusiasm and professionalism that the team brings to it under Matthew’s leadership.

In January, I visited Cardiff and Merthyr Tydfill to see some of our work in Wales, meeting a range of sector colleagues to discuss some of the pressing issues facing the sector. High on the list of priorities was the challenge faced by so many Places of Worship. Wales has such a richly diverse history of building places of worship, and my visit included a tour of the former Methyr Tydfil synagogue to see how plans for the regeneration of this unique survivor were progressing. The sheer number of redundant chapels and churches is a huge issue, not only for Wales but the wider UK, and the role that adaptive reuse can play in supporting a range of new lives for some of these buildings is a question we continue to look at, on both a project-by-project basis and at a wider strategic level. This is a priority we will continue to focus on in the forthcoming year.

It has been a year of some change in the Board. We said a fond farewell to Myra Barnes, our longstanding Trustee and Vice-Chair. We will miss her calm and considered advice, which has been invaluable to the work of the AHF for over ten years. I am delighted that Audrey Carlin, one of our Scotland Trustees, has agreed to become the new Vice-Chair. We also saw the retirement of our Trustee for Wales, Menna Jones, and we wish her well for the future. We welcomed three new Trustees to the Board, Syreeta Bayne, Andy Westwood and Peter Williams. Each has a wealth of experience in their fields and am sure will be incredible assets to the AHF. Peter will be taking over as Chair of the Audit and Risk Committee when Roy Hodson stands down as a Trustee at the end of his term in early 2025.

“We continue to develop our plans for the 50th celebration, and we are keen to hear from new and old supporters who might wish to collaborate with us on this significant milestone.”

Ros Kerslake CBE, Chair

“Dan [Cruickshank’s] impassioned advocacy for the role of communities in the regeneration of places was hugely powerful and a reminder that long-term stewardship of areas takes public and private sectors and communities to work together for long-term benefit.”

Ros Kerslake CBE, Chair

My thanks go to the whole Board for the work they have contributed during the year. We held a Grants Panel and Board meeting in Penzance, and this was an opportunity to visit a number of projects in the town, such as Jubilee Pool, and to meet key partners, including the CEO of Cornwall County Council. Seeing projects and talking to the people behind them provides invaluable insight for the Board’s work.

We are starting to think about our plans for the 50th Anniversary of the AHF in 2026. This has prompted us to look back on some of the projects we have supported over those years, and we recently held a key stakeholder event and heard from historian Dan Cruickshank, the indefatigable Chair of the Spitalfields Historic Buildings Trust, a long-term collaborator with the AHF. The AHF was one of the early investors in the regeneration of historic Spitalfields, back in the 1970s and 80s when it was suffering from significant dereliction, neglect and the effects of de-population. Dan’s impassioned advocacy for the role of communities in the regeneration of places was hugely powerful and a reminder that long-term stewardship of areas takes public and private sectors and communities to work together for long-term benefit. We continue to develop our plans for the 50th celebration, and we are keen to hear from new and old supporters who might wish to collaborate with us on this significant milestone.

I would like to thank all our funders for their new and ongoing investments over the course of the year, including the Department for Communities Northern Ireland, Historic England, Historic Environment Scotland, Cadw and the National Lottery Heritage Fund. We’re also immensely grateful for the ongoing support from foundation and trust supporters, including the Garfield Weston Foundation, The Pilgrim Trust and the William Grant Foundation.

Ros Kerslake CBE

Chair

“Dan’s impassioned advocacy for the role of communities in the regeneration of places was hugely powerful and a reminder that long-term stewardship of areas takes public and private sectors and communities to work together for long-term benefit.”

Welcome from our Chief Executive

This was the first full year of delivery of our new Strategy, and the past twelve months have certainly seen a number of shifts in the political and economic contexts we work within. Despite these changes, I think the underlying objectives within our Strategy remain very relevant to the new political and economic environment we are emerging into.

We’ve remained focused on delivering investment throughout the UK and have started a number of new areas of work, including an increase in the number of partnership funds the AHF is helping deliver. This has included being partners in the Social Investment Business-led Thrive Together Fund and as part of the Delivery Partnership for the Community Ownership Fund, which is managed by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. Developing funds alongside partners has enabled us to open up more funding to some of our existing clients and introduced them to a wider pool of investors beyond purely heritage focused ones. We are continuing to look at developing new AHF-led funds, particularly in relation to housing and blended funds, ones that can oﬀer new funding to the market and which address the needs of communities across the UK.

As well as new partnership funds, we continued to deliver our existing programmes, including Village Catalyst in Northern Ireland. During the year, a number of the pilot schemes completed their capital projects, and I was warmly welcomed to the launch of ‘Murphy’s on Main Street,’ the new co-working and community hub in Ederney, County Fermanagh. This is a fabulous example of the programme’s impact on reducing rural isolation and deprivation, as well as bringing a long-derelict historic building back into use. The fantastic coverage it received on the BBC also demonstrates the wider public interest there is in projects like this.

Resilience has been a big theme during the year and, unfortunately, the economic and social impacts of COVID have not gone away, even though the virus has receded from the headlines (albeit very much still in circulation). Inflation, although heading back towards more normal levels during the year, has still caused a huge spike in build costs which is aﬀecting the ability of communities to bring forward projects with reasonable budgets and is aﬀecting operational projects where people have less money to spend. This is causing stress on projects in development and operation and some, unfortunately, have not been able to proceed. These waves of impact will continue to aﬀect the sector for some time to come.

This year, our Heritage Development Trust programme got under way. Heritage Development Trusts (HDTs) are in essence social enterprise developers and managers that focus on developing a portfolio of heritage assets. We are now supporting 19 across the UK, expanding from the initial seven that formed the pilot funded through the Transforming Places through Heritage Programme (2019-23). Organisations such as Re-Form Heritage in Stoke-on-Trent and Glasgow Building Preservation Trust are newcomers to the HDT cohort, but it was clear the investment in them was already acting as a catalyst for expanding their impact. In Re-Form Heritage’s case, the HDT programme is helping the team to develop plans for a number of asset transfers in the city; and in Glasgow the new investment is helping strategically plan their next phase of projects.

With a new UK government being elected in recent months, it is a time of change. It also remains imperative that we work with the devolved governments in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, and, as is increasingly the case, with the combined authority administrations in England. Given the AHF’s size, engaging directly with many diﬀerent authorities can be a challenge, but we know that devolution is the direction in which funding and decision making are going, so it is essential we are able to work within this new environment.

My thanks as always to the hugely experienced team we have here at the AHF and to the guidance of our Board, under Ros Kerslake’s supportive leadership.

Matthew Mckeague

Chief Executive

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