Saving Heritage?

Culture Matters © David Gill

I have been reflecting on the "Culture Matters" conference in Norwich that has been taking place this week. We heard a passionate plea from Loyd Grossman to support heritage in the UK and beyond. Yet there was a gloomy view that the Westminster Government would continue to cut its support for the "heritage industry" and in particular English Heritage.

So we are faced with the potential degrading of heritage sites that have the potential to attract visitors and money for the UK economy.

Yet as ruined abbeys and castles crumble, the government seems willing (for the moment) to fund a scheme (with decreasing amounts) that essentially records the removal of portable heritage material from unrecorded archaeological contexts. I have raised some of the broad issues through the Papers of the Institute of Archaeology.

If heritage matters to the UK, and specifically to England, perhaps there could be a financial rebalancing to protect our universal inheritance.