Each project will compete for a share of £50million which The National Lottery Heritage Fund is set to award in 2020. This is the first year of a three-year grant fund worth £100m in total, designed to revolutionise UK heritage.

“We asked for ambitious, innovative and transformational projects, not just for heritage, but for people and communities too. The panel was really impressed and inspired by what it saw."

 

Eilish McGuinness, Executive Director and Chair of the Heritage Horizon Awards Panel at The National Lottery Heritage Fund

Changing heritage

All the projects share our vision to bring systemic change to heritage across the UK. There are a number of compelling and emerging themes, including:

• responding to the climate change emergency
• tackling the most at-risk heritage
• future-proofing farming
• improving resilience and enterprise in the heritage sector
• helping people and places to thrive

Transformational projects

Eilish McGuinness, Executive Director and Chair of the Heritage Horizon Awards Panel at The National Lottery Heritage Fund, said: “We asked for ambitious, innovative and transformational projects, not just for heritage, but for people and communities too. The panel was really impressed and inspired by what it saw.    

“It was also really gratifying to see so many proposals recognising the incredible contribution of The National Lottery as well as our focus on strategic priorities including landscape and nature, heritage at risk and inclusion.   

“We’re really grateful to everyone who presented, including those who we haven’t been able to invite to take their projects further. We are optimistic they have found this a beneficial exercise, in some cases developing ideas that may well be delivered in different ways.   

“We’re very excited for the next stage of the process and will now work with the projects ahead of an application for development funding later this year.”   

The 12 shortlisted projects 

The shortlisted projects invited to apply for development funding for a Heritage Horizon Award are: 

• Cairngorms 2030: People and nature thriving together – Cairngorms National Park Authority  
• Creative Archives: Denbighshire & Flintshire Joint Archive Project – Denbighshire County Council and Flintshire County Council
• Diving in: A future for Moseley Road Baths – The National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty   
• Great Yarmouth Winter Gardens – Great Yarmouth Borough Council   
• International Slavery Museum: Igniting Ideas and Action –  National Museums Liverpool    
• Peatland Progress: A New Vision for the Fens – The Wildlife Trust for Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Northamptonshire   
• Plymouth Sound National Marine Park – Plymouth City Council   
• Save Mavisbank: Pioneering Approaches to Heritage & Communities – Historic Environment Scotland    
• Secured for our Children – Nature, World Heritage and Farming in the Lake District – Lake District Foundation   
• Shipshape & Brunel Fashion – SS Great Britain Trust  
• Transforming the Ulster Folk Museum: A People's Project – National Museums Northern Ireland  
• Vision 2025 – National Railway Museum 

What happens next

The new Heritage Horizon Awards, launched by CEO Ros Kerslake in June 2019, are designed to revolutionise the UK’s heritage through investment of £100m over three years.    

The 12 projects now have until November 2020 to apply for development funding. Decisions will be made in early 2021, with around half the shortlisted projects expected to be awarded funding to develop their proposals further. 

Those projects will be applying for the first of two batches of £50m and have up to two years to submit delivery proposals, with full funding awards decided by The National Lottery Heritage Fund Board.