How Do You Solve a Problem Like Forever?
Paul Forecast, Regional Director of the National Trust in the East of England shares the seven principles of creating a sustainable conservation model.
In 2020 the National Trust celebrates its 125-year anniversary. It's humbling to look back at the incredible achievements of the people that came before us, but if we look forwards it's terrifying that our commitment is to look after the special places in our care forever. As with all in the heritage sector it asks the question of how you create a sustainable conservation model. Here are the seven organising principles …
1. Everything is important, but not everything is equally important
One of my former colleagues recounted a story of a team talking about whether they should catalogue a set of children’s Ladybird books from the 1960s or hang a Stubbs painting. It's a reminder that with so much to do we can lose sight of what is truly important or significant. With finite resources it is important to have a system for prioritising effort. In the case of buildings, archaeology, nature reserves and landscapes we use designations and in the case of our collections information about their significance.
2. Think long term
Forever is both a daunting term and at the same time a liberating term as it allows you to plan conservation work over the long term. We use conservation condition assessments to enable us to target our efforts to the work that is most urgent with the confidence that we can come back to other conservation tasks in the future. In addition, these condition assessments allow us to consider whether early intervention reduces the overall cost in the long term.
3. Conservation is the careful management of change
There can be the assumption that the things in our care will remain unchanged. In some cases this is right and others this notion is unsustainable. A good example of this is at Orford Ness where we have many buildings that were built with a short life span to do a time limited job.
There has been an ongoing debate as to whether we should fully restore these buildings or allow them to slowly decline. The decision is to adopt a policy of controlled ruination, with the thinking that to restore these buildings would be too costly and would remove their essence. Instead we are carefully recording the fabric and history of the building as a permanent and sustainable record.
4. Tread lightly on the earth
At Oxburgh Hall we're repairing the roof which has been damaged by death-watch beetle, dry rot, water ingress and ground movement. There is increasing evidence that these problems are exacerbated due to warmer and wetter winters as a result of climate change. As well as dealing with the direct effects of climate change, we have committed to reduce our own impact on the environment by reducing our use of water, carbon and the generation of waste. At Blickling Hall our heating is provided by renewable clean energy through a Lake Source Heat Pump: part of a wider programme of work that will see the National Trust carbon neutral by 2030.
5. Know what you're getting into
The National Trust takes on new properties with great care. The starting point is asking whether the property is both significant and secondly whether we are the best option for its conservation. If we do take properties on we ensure that we assess the cost of looking after the property for 50 years. In some instances, this requires us to seek an endowment from the people gifting us the property which will generate sufficient income to keep the property in good heart. These business cases are increasingly sophisticated as we look at a multitude of income sources including rents, grants, admission income and commercial opportunities.
6. Build the capability of your teams
Techniques for the care of our places is something that is evolving all the time. We invest heavily in the training and development of our teams and are looking for ways to innovate the way that we do things so that we can do more.
7. Conservation is a human choice
As a charity National Trust are reliant on the moral, financial and voluntary support of others. Our charitable purpose is to both look after the places in our care and provide access to the nation. Three people founded the National Trust, but today we have nearly 6 million members, 60,000 volunteers and we welcome 200 million visits to our properties. This creates a virtuous circle of providing access to people, exciting them about the places in our care, seeking their support to put back into conservation work, enabling more access. I'm unsure whether 125 years ago our founders knew the significance of how our two aims would play out, but I am grateful that, whether by accident or design, they created a sustainable model that allows for forever.
