Publications
HSI - Heritage Skills - the first steps
http://www.nect.org.uk/index.php?page=reports
This is the first commissioned report by the North East Historic Environment Forum, with financial assistance from the Heritage Lottery Fund and English Heritage, to investigate the shortage of heritage skills across the North East region. Although the pilot year primarily focused upon the built heritage, it is acknowledged that there is a need to further diversify this work and integrate strategies and practical initiatives for other heritage professionals and portable heritage at an appropriate time.
The North East has a rich and diverse heritage and its future, along with regional tourism, employment and a sense of place for those who live here, is literally in the hands of those who care for it. The huge burden of ongoing care and maintenance is dependant upon the skills and knowledge of the people who innately understand the materials and have the craftsmanship to undertake the necessary work to discover, maintain, care for and interpret our heritage. There has been long and growing concern at the loss of traditional skills and the impact of that loss on the cultural heritage sector. Along with this, the opportunities to undertake training and employment in this field are also dwindling, therefore creating a skills vacuum.
Over the last fifteen years there has been an ever increasing number of reports by a wide variety of national and regional organisations bemoaning this loss, all listing recommendations but too few focusing upon action and, more importantly, identifying who would ensure the recommendations be implemented. The pilot year of the Heritage Skills Project has demonstrated, through a series of pragmatic partnership programmes, the North East’s ability and desire to provide action. By creating practical opportunities to build regional capacity for training, placements and employment through events programming, awareness raising and brokering partnerships, the region is seen to be dynamic and leading the way.
The hard work starts now! The two year plan outlines how we intend to move from the pilot year project into a sustainable and mainstream initiative, growing and developing partnerships that will enable the North East to develop a flourishing skills base from which to maintain the region’s rich heritage.