This month the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) celebrates its 15th anniversary. Thanks to National Lottery players, HLF has been able to support 30,000 projects – to the tune of £4.3billion – the biggest concentrated investment ever made in the UK’s heritage.

Dame Jenny Abramsky, Chair of HLF, commented "There is much to celebrate! Fifteen years of HLF funding has not only revitalised hundreds of museums, parks, historic buildings, landscapes and wildlife sites, but has also given new meaning to heritage itself: people from every walk of life are now involved with heritage that inspires them, making choices about what they want to keep and share from the past, for future generations.”

HLF has made a big difference across the UK - areas of funding include:

• Regeneration - £1.6billion invested in 2,315 national and regional regeneration projects including buildings, monuments, townscapes and Britain’s much-loved coastal resorts.
• Museums and galleries - £1.37billion awarded towards 2,190 individual projects.
• Built heritage - £1.5billion has been spent on conserving around 12,000 historic buildings and monuments, including more than 2,700 places of worship.
• Natural heritage - £860million has safeguarded precious landscapes and public parks, countryside and creatures.
• Children and young people - £3.9billion awarded to 22,000 projects that encourage children and young people to explore their heritage.
• Volunteering - more than £1.75 billion has been awarded to over 21,800 projects that involve volunteers in looking after heritage.
• Skills – from sedge-cutting to stained glass, HLF’s investment of nearly £10million into its Training Bursary Programme has helped revitalise more than 50 traditional skills.
• Oral history - £67million has been awarded to record stories and oral history projects, creating a lasting legacy of people’s lives.
• Learning - £1.4billion channelled in to 3,600 projects to promote education and learning.

HLF has recently invested an additional £5million to support a broad range of specialist skills and training opportunities –from horticulture to conservation and web design – within the sector. ‘Skills for the Future’*, launching on 2 December, will deliver up to 1,000 paid work-based training opportunities for people seeking a career in heritage.

Notes to Editors

‘Skills for the Future’ will offer new work-based training in the skills that are needed to look after our buildings, landscapes, habitats, species, and museum collections. This could include training education and outreach officers, volunteer managers and people who need new technology skills to help the public learn about our heritage and play an active part in its future.