Heritage Places
Heritage Places is a long-term, strategic investment in up to 20 different places across the UK.
Driven by our Heritage 2033 strategy, our aim is to make heritage integral to plans that are making local areas better places to live, work and visit.
In October 2023, we announced the first nine Heritage Places, where we'll invest a share of £200million. These were:
- Armagh City, Banbridge and Craigavon Council Area
- County Durham (focused around Shildon and Newton Aycliffe)
- Glasgow (focused on Sauchiehall Street, in the city centre)
- Leicester
- Medway
- Neath Port Talbot
- North-East Lincolnshire
- Stoke-on-Trent
- Torbay
Who can apply
Our investment is helping partner organisations in each of our Heritage Places to work collaboratively with the local community.
Together, they are creating and delivering plans to boost the capacity and resilience of local heritage.
As with National Lottery Heritage Grants, we welcome applications from a range of not-for-profit organisations; for example, local authorities, museums and community organisations. We can also consider applications from private owners of a heritage asset for grants up to £250,000. Please refer to our standard guidance for more information.
In your application, you will need to demonstrate that your project is part of the plans for your Heritage Place and provide a supporting letter from your lead local partner organisation.
If you are unsure whether your project should be part of Heritage Places, you can contact your local team.
Considerations for a Heritage Place application
Our ambition by 2033 is to have supported projects in Heritage Places that:
- increase pride in place and connect communities and visitors with heritage through targeted investment
- build the capacity of local heritage organisations to maximise their contribution to communities
- create schemes that respond to local needs and engage with different kinds of heritage, from museums and galleries to cultural heritage, from our industrial past to the natural environment
- take a people-centred approach that recognises everyone’s heritage
We will consider these aims alongside our standard requirements for National Lottery Heritage Grants, including responding to all four investment principles, when assessing your application.
How to apply
Applications for Heritage Places projects are made through our National Lottery Heritage Grants. Please read through the corresponding guidance, in addition to this page. To help us identify your project as part of this strategic initiative, you must:
- start your project title with the hashtag ‘#HP’
- provide a supporting letter from your lead local partner(s)
Heritage Places can apply for funding from £10,000 up to £10million throughout the strategic initiative to work towards their aims.
Initial projects are likely to focus on activities that increase capacity, engage communities, and define long-term priorities for heritage with larger applications following afterwards. However, we expect each Heritage Place’s approach to be different depending on local needs.
For grants up to £250,000, you can submit an optional project enquiry to get feedback on your project idea.
For grants over £250,000, you must first submit an expression of interest.
Please note: the £200million for Heritage Places is the overall budget for the strategic initiative and is not £10million per place or geographic area.
Receiving your grant
If you are awarded funding, please follow the below guidance which sets out what we expect of you before, during and after receiving it.
How we make decisions
In addition to our processes under the National Lottery Heritage Grants programme, we will assess how your project addresses the considerations of the strategic initiative.
For grants of less than £250,000, decisions are made on a monthly basis by the staff in your nation or area. For grants above £250,000, recommendations will be made by nation/area committees, with final decisions made on a quarterly basis by our Board of Trustees.
Branding and acknowledgement
Projects funded through this initiative should use our acknowledgement guidance for Heritage Places.
Find out more
- Explore our Thriving Places hub for place-based case studies, stories and blogs.
- Delve into our Heritage Places: year 1 evaluation report
- Data for Heritage Places – a new analysis using the Heritage Index
