24 C O N T E X T 1 0 7 : N O V E M B E R 2 0 0 8 EDWARD HOLLAND Recycling historic buildings The Prince’s Regeneration Trust delivers heritage-led regeneration throughout the UK, concentrating on finding new uses for listed buildings that are abandoned and at risk. The work of the Prince’s Regeneration Trust over the past 10 years or so has mainly been in areas of social and economic need, such as former industrial areas. In these places it is usual to find huge derelict buildings, former power-houses of industry, often extremely well built, but now unused. This is not because the buildings have failed but because the process for which they were built has changed or died out altogether. Former industrial communities are seldom very mobile, so NormanTebbit’s infamous comment urging people to get on their bikes approached the social and economic issues from the wrong angle.This could have led to wholesale abandonment of areas rather than the creation of new opportunities within them for people who wish to remain living where their roots are, and who have potentially re-usable buildings all around them. The trust’s work has been to see the potential to recycle such buildings through evaluating the skills and needs of the area, and the degree of change that such historic buildings might sustain. Working with communities, the trust has been able to demonstrate that the original use need not be a building’s only use. Working with local authorities and agencies, it has demonstrated the overall heritage benefit of enabling change. A good example of this approach is at Sowerby Bridge, near Halifax. At the junction of the Rochdale Canal and the Calder and Hebble Navigation is a large wharf with warehouses that provided a transshipment point for the busy trade along these northern waterways. By the 1990s they were out of use and their condition was deteriorating. The British Waterways Board regarded them as a financial burden, but as they were listed, the site could not be easily redeveloped. The Prince’s Regeneration Trust pulled together a local partnership including business people, local organisations and agencies such as Yorkshire Forward. The local community had largely given up on the site, and would not have been able to generate the confidence to deliver a successful project on its own. The first decision was, surprisingly, not to restore any buildings but to build a new access from the main road down to the wharf. Further attention was drawn to this by erecting a piece of public art – a delightful bronze of a lock-keeper opening the gate. Demonstrating to people that the wharf was opening up and that something was happening generated interest in the proposed new uses for the buildings. The Prince’s Regeneration Trust’s £3.8 million project restored the two listed warehouses, one for offices, restaurant and interpretation, and the other, with its integral dock, for boat building, offices and workshops. The success of this led to the surrounding warehouses being restored and reused as well. The initial work had a catalytic effect that is still continuing today. The wharf is now a tourist destination. At last count, 270 new jobs had been created in restaurants, bars, offices, service providers and shops. Recycling these buildings has made a massive contribution to the local economy, as a sizeable proportion of those who work on the wharf live in the area. It has also helped to lift property values in the surrounding community. The project involved a few radical interventions, such as an external glass lift, but the end result has resulted in these listed buildings being given a viable future. The process has been rolled out in similar situations around the country. Another example is at Hayle in Cornwall. Harvey’s Foundry was one of two foundries at Hayle that made it the steam-pumping engine production capital of the world. At its peak, 80 per cent of the world’s steampumping engines came from Hayle. The collapse of the industry in the mid 20th century inevitably caused the rapid decline of the town. The aim of the Harvey’s Foundry project was to find a meaningful way of saving the surviving buildings on the site and, through doing so, to create much-needed economic and social Sowerby Bridge after restoration
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