National Lottery Heritage Fund Grants: Conservation Management Plans

Debate between Lord Aberdare and Lord Ashton of Hyde

Wednesday 24th April 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Aberdare]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what action they will take to ensure that Conservation Management Plans for parks and gardens which have received National Lottery Heritage Fund grants are properly preserved and safeguarded for public availability and use.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Lord Ashton of Hyde) (Con)]

My Lords, the Government recognise the importance of maintaining a record of the UK’s landscape heritage. The National Lottery Heritage Fund will make available on request a list of funded projects potentially containing conservation management plans, to enable interested parties to request copies of those plans as needed. The fund will also strengthen the emphasis on creating a legacy record for funded projects and on making this publicly accessible wherever possible.

[Lord Aberdare (CB)]

My Lords, the National Lottery Heritage Fund has provided sterling support for parks and gardens throughout the UK through some £50 million of grants. In the process it has accumulated an invaluable archive of conservation management plans covering the history, ecology, archaeology, social context and design of those parks and gardens. That physical archive has now been destroyed, much to the dismay of numerous garden conservation and archival bodies. Beyond the welcome but limited steps in his Answer, what can the Minister do to ensure that proper procedures are put in place so that, in future, important material of this kind held by the NHLF and other bodies with responsibilities to the public is properly looked after and made available? Will he encourage all such bodies to publish their records management policies and procedures to ensure greater transparency and oversight?

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

The noble Lord paid tribute to the National Lottery Heritage Fund for supporting landscape projects. It has given more than £1.1 billion to more than 13,000 landscape projects since it started. Historic England has also looked at maintaining archive records and has set up the heritage information access strategy programme, which is due to be delivered by 2022. It will facilitate the free uploading and storage of information in a publicly accessible database by any organisation. However, the problem remains that the copyright of these conservation management plans rests with the grantee, or sometimes the contractor, not with the National Lottery Heritage Fund.