Details

The City of Canterbury is a district comprising the towns of Herne Bay, Whitstable and Canterbury itself, with a population of 165,000 in 2018. With a UNESCO world heritage site, an Area of Archaeological Importance, 97 Conservation Areas, 53 Scheduled Monuments, 2 Registered Parks and Gardens, 1880 Listed Buildings, a protected shipwreck and over 9000 undesignated assets, heritage plays an important  role in defining the district’s character. However, it is also a precious and delicate resource that needs care and protection. 

Due to the quality of Canterbury’s historical environment, there is an active community of professionals, organisations and community groups focusing on  heritage. Heritage features prominently in the City’s strategies for transport, green and open spaces management, air quality, place-making, as well as conservation and regeneration. The Heritage Strategy aims to integrate all these strategies into a unified vision for heritage as a way to deliver long-term economic, social and environmental benefits to the district.

The initial project planning for the Strategy was approved by the City’s Senior Management and Council Members in January 2018. Public engagement - including workshops, meetings with relevant stakeholders and engagement activities, some involving school children - followed, alongside with an internal consultation with Council Officers to ensure cross-departmental participation and buy-in. The first draft of the Strategy was prepared and supported by councillors. It was submitted for public consultation during December 2018 and January 2019. The strategy was then amended in response to public comments, and an Action Plan for the first year was prepared. The Action Plan highlights specific Council heritage initiatives and local community projects.

 

Developing the  strategy

The strategy was prepared “in-house” by the Canterbury City Council’s Planning Policy and Heritage team. However, the strategy encompasses the agenda of different services and requires successful inter-departmental work.

Who made it possible?

The initial research for drafting the strategy drew on evidence including the Kent Historic Environment Record by Kent County Council, the Canterbury Urban Archaeological database and planning application data both provided by Canterbury City Council.

The project is being  implemented through the involvement of local partners. The annual review of the Plan allows for the inclusion of a number of partnerships that can grow in future years. The 2019 Action Plan featured cooperation with the Canterbury Archeological Trust, Historic England, Canterbury Society, the World Heritage Site Committee, Friends of the Canterbury Castle and CITiZAN on Council-led initiatives.

Stakeholder and community engagement

The Strategy is intended as a guideline for the whole community and not just for the Council. As such, local associations and cultural institutions are encouraged to devise actions in line with the overall  Strategy, and their projects and events are included in the action plan.

The community was also engaged in all phases of drafting the Strategy. Heritage workshops were organised in the early phase of the process and saw the participation of 53 organisations, discussing their ambitions, concerns and understanding of heritage. A district-wide online consultation on the draft strategy was also conducted between December 2018 and January 2019.

The engagement of the local community included work with schools. For example, a Heritage Art competition engaging 34 primary schools was launched, acting as a catalyst to debate and creative thinking about the district’s heritage and to strengthen the sense of identity. Educational drop-in sessions at The Beaney House of Art and Knowledge were also organised to support the project.

National planning policy and SDG11.4 place a high priority on the conservation and management of the historic environment. Planners in the city council embraced this priority and went further, adding a vision of Canterbury’s heritage as a source of multiple benefits for the community and as a strategic resource for place-making. 

In this sense, the Strategy is conceived as a shared and accessible framework that can be used by anyone as a catalyst for heritage projects. For this reason, it was decided to separate a high-level vision, set out in the strategy itself, from the actions detailed in the Action Plan. Equalities Impact Assessments were carried out in every phase of the drafting of the Strategy to ensure that it provides a vision that is applicable to all.

The City Council has a statutory responsibility to protect the environment. The Canterbury District Local Plan (2017) contains policies to preserve and enhance local heritage, while other policies across the various departments seek to promote historic rural, urban and coastal landscapes. 

However, a unified strategy for the historic environment, as encouraged by the National Planning Policy Framework, was still needed. Moreover, the Strategy aligns with the 2020 vision set in the Canterbury City Council Corporate Plan (2016), that revolved around the three foci of People, Prosperity and Place.

Chapter three of the Strategy details how heritage gives a contribution for each of the foci, mobilising different documents, such as the Culture White Paper (2016), the Heritage Counts 2018 report and studies by Visit Kent as evidence for the social, economic and environmental benefits of heritage.

The Strategy recognises the need to diversify approaches to secure investment in heritage, including public as well as private funding.

As for the former, the Strategy relies on the national Heritage Lottery Fund, funding through Historic England and Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport schemes, and other funding schemes that are detailed in Heritage Alliance’s Heritage Funding Directory. There is also the possibility to access  local funding that are advertised on Kent County Council’s Inside Track magazine. Canterbury City Council offers several funds (RISE, Strategic and Improvement grants, Forum Opportunity Funds) and guidance to community groups that want to put forward heritage-related projects.

The Strategy also highlights the importance of all sources of private investment ranging from business support and foundation trusts to individual donations. 

An important place is given to the mobilisation of the local knowledge and networks that already exist in the area through volunteering.

A Heritage Strategy for Canterbury District

The strategy explores the ways in which heritage contributes to the social and economic life of the Canterbury district.

It is directed towards three objectives. Firstly, it aims to protect and preserve  the historical environment, thus fulfilling the city council’s statutory requirement. This includes proactive conservation approaches, as well as regeneration led projects. Attracting investment and funding is crucial to this objective, and so is gaining a better understanding of Canterbury’s heritage. 

Secondly, it aims to promote Canterbury’s heritage as a catalyst to engaging local communities and new audiences. Some of the commitments taken in pursuit of this objective are to create accessible historic environments and to organise heritage related events and initiatives for the community.

The third objective is to capture the value of heritage as a resource, by attracting investments, improving the health and well-being of local communities and working towards sustainability.

The strategy does not contain any specific policy or actions, as those are detailed in the Action Plan. Instead, it is conceived as a shared document setting the strategic and high-level priorities and guidances to encourage  and coordinate heritage projects - not just from the Council but also from other stakeholders. Therefore, it provides a framework on which specific projects can be based, within clearly defined objectives: delivering a better quality of life for the community, promoting social cohesion and local identity, and creating better places.

Action Plan

The Strategy’s implementation is enacted through the Action Plan. Reviewed every year, this plan commits to initiatives which collectively contribute towards the strategic objectives. 

In  2019, these included actions, such as improving access to information and projects to enhance the quality of the public realm. It also included long-term projects, namely the preparation and delivery of a new Conservation Area Appraisal and Management Plan for Canterbury City, that will deliver proactive mechanisms to protect the character and heritage of the city. 

Capacity building

The development of the strategy has contributed to the creation of a network of organisations and individuals working with heritage, including the city council. This network is a resource that can be activated for future projects and initiatives. 

Review and monitoring

The Strategy establishes an annual monitoring and review of the Action Plan.

The most innovative aspect of the strategy is its open and flexible nature. Conceived as a tool to coordinate different initiatives from all the stakeholders involved in heritage, from institutional actors to communities, the Strategy has the capacity to include all those initiatives through the annual review of the Action Plan. That makes the strategy adaptable and particularly inclusive, as grassroot projects that contribute to the strategy are encouraged and can be easily integrated. The two-step approach of having a high-level strategy separated from a frequently reviewed action plan is a good practice that can be used in very different contexts to ensure it remains responsive.