Historic Environment Scotland - Esther Renwick
Historic Environment Scotland
Historic Environment Scotland (HES) is the lead public body for Scotland's historic environment ensuring that our heritage is protected, understood and shared for today and the future. HES works with partners and stakeholders to make sure that the historic environment thrives and delivers economic and social benefits for the people of Scotland.
HES has a number of core functions which include managing over 300 properties in care and significant collections, maintaining lists of historic sites, and advising and regulating on planning impacts. They also provide technical advice and research to support the conservation of the historic environment. HES invests around £14.5 million annually in grant funding to organisations. In addition they provide marine planning advice and work internationally on UNESCO World Heritage Sites, reporting annually to the Scottish Government.
A key role HES plays in the partnership is reminding the other partner organisations to advocate for and promote heritage as part of their strategies. There is typically a heritage element to any thematic discussion. This could be encouraging people to use the historic environment to support health and wellbeing such as for exercise, learning or to think about volunteering opportunities. Heritage plays a part when undertaking local place planning, thinking about what is significant to a community and what might need protection or a future use. Or it may be thinking about how to decarbonise traditional buildings to tackle fuel poverty and support our transition to net zero.
Find out more about Historic Environment Scotland on their website.
Esther Renwick, District Visitor and Community Manager for Orkney and Shetland
The visitor economy in Shetland is very important. HES has eight properties in its care in Shetland, Jarlshof alone receives around 30,000 visitors annually and is now open all year round. The Properties in Care provide employment in the isles – there are two local teams looking after these sites and their visitors, a Monument Conservation Unit, based at Fort Charlotte, and a team of visitor facing staff at Jarlshof, both teams work across all eight properties.
Esther believes the best way that the partnership can serve the Shetland community is by all partners having a knowledge and understanding of each other’s work and a shared approach to community planning which will benefit local people. This enables an opportunity for constant feedback and improvement. Esther is a voice for Shetland on these topics and issues, she feeds back local views into HES policy formation.
HES have an overarching vision around Heritage for All and want to support the Shetland community in embracing and celebrating their tangible and intangible heritage. Over the next three years, Esther would like to see partners support this aim through effective collaboration.