Local authority adopts new 15-year strategy to protect historic and natural environment

A council has adopted a new Heritage Strategy to ensure “the conservation, protection and sustainability” of the area’s historic and natural environment.

Neath Port Talbot’s Restore, Regenerate, Repurpose strategy covers the period form 2024-2039.

The council secured funding from The National Lottery Heritage Fund in 2020 to deliver the Heritage NPT Project which included the development of the strategy.

Assets include in the plan include listed buildings, buildings of local importance, canals, conservation areas, historic landscapes, scheduled monuments, historic parks and gardens, battlefields and shipwrecks.

Value

The strategy’s themes focus on the need to value the area’s historic environment and working collectively with partners and stakeholders to put in place “far-reaching and long-term interventions to achieve these aims”.

The National Lottery Heritage Fund will continue to support the next phase of the heritage project and has announced that Neath Port Talbot is one of nine areas in the UK to benefit from a share of £200m to help transform its historic environment through a new Heritage Places initiative.

Priority

Cllr Cen Phillips, the council’s Cabinet Member for Nature, Tourism and Wellbeing, said: “The clear message from our residents when their views were sought in a public consultation exercise on this issue is that a greater priority should be given to our heritage and culture.

“The newly adopted strategy recognises how our heritage assets play an important part in increasing the appeal of the county borough as a place to live, work, visit and invest in. Working creatively with key stakeholders, it sets out how we can manage and protect our historic environment.

“The strategy, coupled with The National Lottery Heritage Fund’s announcement of major financial backing, has the potential to transform this area using its own unique heritage.”

You can view the Restore, Regenerate, Repurpose strategy here.