About the West Midlands Heritage Skills Initiative

The lack of traditional building craft skills in this region was highlighted in the NHTG 2005 Craft Skills report and the 2007 West Midlands Heritage Counts publication. A West Midlands Regional Heritage Skills Action Group has been established to coordinate the strategy and activities to help address this issue.

The steering group is composed of representatives from English Heritage, West Midlands Centre for Constructing Excellence (WMCCE), Learning & Skills Council (LSC), Business Link, British Waterways, ConstructionSkills, Stourbridge College and the Ironbridge Institute. This is linked to a wider stakeholder group of those with an interest in the built heritage sector.

With funding from the LSC, regional specific research of a representative sample of contractors was undertaken and published in the NHTG report A survey of Building Contractor’s Views on Traditional Building Craft Skills and Training Needs in the West Midlands. The findings are being used to help us target skills and training development in the region using Train to Gain funding. This survey was set against the national backdrop of the NHTG craft skills England 2008 Review research report.

The group is also developing and implementing a promotion and marketing campaign to raise awareness of the importance of these skills and engaging with stakeholders to disseminate the reults of the survey and promote the regional skills action plan and the HLF funded Traditional Building Skills Bursary Scheme and other initiatives.  

to the initiative will provide information, advice and guidance, develop a database of contractors, training providers and publicly funded or grant-aided regional heritage projects, develop training opportuntites, support heritage skills events and disseminate infromation across the region.