Our “Putting it off” Research Programme
Maintain our Heritage recently led a major research programme on maintenance issues.
Maintenance is recognised as the optimum strategy for the care of buildings.
Yet the UK has only ever had a policy of passive endorsement of maintenance, not the pro-active encouragement and support it needs.
The report, Putting It Off, is the culmination of a wide-ranging research programme on maintenance issues. Maintain wants the report to stimulate debate and re-thinking. The time is ripe for a wholesale change in policy and practice – in Government, the construction industry, the professions, local authorities and owners – to promote the maintenance of historic buildings.
This report is not only for professionals and practitioners. Maintenance is about attitudes as well as expertise and it is a cultural, economic, environmental and social issue as well as a technical one. The target audience is wide, covering all those with an interest and responsibility for those issues.
The research programme started in 2002 and was completed in 2004.
The research was divided into seven modules, all of which can be downloaded from this site:
Maintain our Heritage welcomes views and comments on the issues raised by the research. To comment, click here .
Maintain won funding from the UK Department of Trade & Industry through its Partners in Innovation programme. The other main funders were English Heritage and Heritage Lottery Fund, with contributions from Construction Industry Training Board and University of the West of England. The total budget was £185,000. The Pilgrim Trust made possible the development of the research proposal.
The full list of partners was:
Maintain our Heritage
Association of British Insurers
British Institute of Facilities Management
Build Assured
Cadw (Wales)
Chartered Institute of Building
Construction Industry Research and Information Association
Construction Industry Training Board
DTI (Department for Trade and Industry)
English Heritage
Environment & Heritage Service (Northern Ireland)
Heritage Building Contractors Group
Heritage Information Trust
Heritage Lottery Fund
Historic Scotland
Institute of Historic Building Conservation
Institute of Maintenance and Building Management
National Trust
University of the West of England, Bristol
Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings