The National Lottery Heritage Fund launches new initiative for future of UK’s places of worship

The National Lottery Heritage Fund has announced a new strategic initiative to address the challenges facing the UK’s beloved places of worship and build a brighter and more sustainable future for them at the heart of communities.

The three-year initiative will be delivered as part of the Heritage Fund’s ten-year strategy, Heritage 2033. It will challenge the heritage sector to devise and deliver strategic projects at a national and regional level to address sector-wide issues and funding gaps. These strategic projects will be backed by an additional funding pot of at least £15million.

Large scale and potentially across countries, and regions, the Heritage Fund will provide targeted support to build capacity, develop approaches to project planning and diversify income streams. This new initiative aims to encourage organisations that can have a broad impact across the places of worship sector to address widespread needs and challenges and develop strategic projects with a focus on sustainability, accelerating new ideas and interventions and proactively tackling long-standing heritage issues at scale.

This could include:

· much needed repairs to listed places of worship to enable them to continue playing active local roles

· building the skills and capabilities of workforces and volunteers to ensure ongoing building care

· saving heritage in places of worship that is currently inaccessible, at risk or under-used so it can be enjoyed by many more

· exploring how places of worship and their heritage can be managed more effectively and how they can be repositioned in community life.

This targeted investment is available UK-wide. The Heritage Fund has made its first award through the strategic initiative, investing £4.68m to support the Church of Englands Conservation Grants Scheme over the next five years and enable it to expand. The investment has unlocked further match funding, bringing funding for the scheme to £5.5m.

Currently, the Church of England awards around £250,000 per year to its churches for the conservation of historic church interiors and churchyard structures and awards grants for creating conservation reports. The National Lottery investment will see it invest nearly £5 million over the next five years and enable it to also fund building repairs which benefit historic objects, support a conservation training programme to expand skills within the sector and award special project grants for work such as condition surveys or supporting previous Church of England projects which are facing difficulties.

The expanded scheme will leave heritage within places of worship in a much better condition and equip the sector with the reports, expert advice and skills needed to care for that heritage into the future.

Around a further £85million is expected to be awarded through National Lottery Grants for Heritage grants programme over the next three years. Any place of worship in the UK, of any religion or denomination is encouraged to apply.

The Heritage Fund’s engagement and marketing teams will be working with places of worship to increase awareness of the funding available, break down perceived barriers to accessing funding and provide support for those making applications.

The Heritage Fund has supported places of worship for 30 years, since its creation in 1994, and has invested over £1billion in more than 8,200 places of worship across the UK.

Simon Thurley, Chair of The National Lottery Heritage Fund, said: “Places of worship are some of the UK’s most historic buildings often at the heart of communities. There are many challenges, facing these places, some new and others long-standing. Our new strategy commits us to working with everyone concerned about their future to ensure that they are valued, cared for and sustained for everyone.

“We are delighted to make our first award to the Church of England’s fantastic conservation grants scheme and we are looking forward to working with organisations in Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and the rest of England over the next three years to support them in tackling the problems they face.”

Emily Gee, Church of England said: "We are hugely grateful to the Heritage Fund for this extraordinarily generous and much-needed award for church buildings. It will enable us to expand our support to parishes in their crucial work to preserve our treasured cultural heritage, including the conservation of stained glass, wall paintings, clocks, bells, paintings and monuments. It will also provide a programme to enable churches to partner with educational institutions in the training of a new generation of heritage craft skill specialists, who are vital to the ongoing preservation of this diverse and rich heritage.

"I would like to pay tribute and thank all the thousands of dedicated volunteers who work so hard and give their time to ensuring that the heritage of our church buildings, so cherished by our communities, is sustained into the future. We are also deeply grateful to those funders, particularly The Pilgrim Trust, and the Radcliffe Trust, who have supported this programme over so many years and established this remarkable programme for churches and their communities."

Heritage Minister Sir Chris Bryant, said: "The UK’s places of worship are an extraordinary part of the tapestry of our national identity. Many have marked our births, deaths and marriages for centuries. They have been criss-crossed with the scars of countless everyday events and moments of national crisis and celebration. They can offer sanctuary from the slings and arrows of life for people of all faiths and none, a place to be calmed or inspired.

"Thanks to funding provided by the National Lottery Heritage Fund, these important buildings will continue to thrive and serve the communities that cherish them for generations to come.”