Our Grant Priorities
As you would expect, there is a high demand for our grants. This means we are not always able to offer a grant to every project which meets published grant scheme criteria. Grant applications are therefore assessed against our priorities as well as individual scheme criteria.
Please note that we also assess all the projects that we fund on how they will achieve outcomes that deliver public value. Historic England has adopted a public value framework (PVF) to provide assurance to its stakeholders, including the taxpaying public, that it invests public money in ways that optimise value. Please refer to our public value framework page for more information.
We strongly recommend that you contact your local office to discuss your project before making any grant application.
National priorities
We would normally expect all projects for which a grant is sought to meet one of our national priorities. These are:
- Significant elements of the historic environment at risk; and
- Activities that strengthen the ability of the sector to reduce or avoid risk to the historic environment by understanding, managing and conserving.
Our Heritage at Risk Register shows the most significant elements of the historic environment at risk that we currently know about. If you are considering making a grant application for project development and/or repair work at a site that does not appear on the Heritage at Risk Register, you should check whether it might be eligible for grant by contacting your local Historic England office.
As we are unlikely to be able to help all priority projects in any one year, we will focus on those projects where there is a realistic opportunity to achieve progress now.
We also need to be satisfied that you have explored other sources of charitable, private and public funding, for example the National Lottery Heritage Fund. In some cases, we will be willing to help with project development work which will facilitate solutions for heritage assets at risk even though we may be unable to help with major repairs. Sometimes other funders will be better placed to help with major repairs.
We review our grant priorities periodically to ensure that we are responding to the changing needs of the historic environment.
