C O N T E X T 1 1 4 : M A Y 2 0 1 0 45 The second main aim was to develop major enhancement and grant programmes to achieve conservationled regeneration. The public sector’s role is to provide a framework of support to encourage private sector and BPT investment, providing gap funding for repairs, to achieve viable end uses with robust business plans. An important factor was the need for the continuity of public sector programmes. A town scheme with English Heritage for five years from 1991 assisted 50 buildings. This was followed by a three-year conservation area partnership scheme. A further three-year heritage economic regeneration scheme with English Heritage grant-aided 37 buildings. With £540,000 of grant aid generating £3 million of building works, these schemes began to turn the tide of neglect. In 2003, a £2 million Heritage Lottery Fund townscape heritage initiative grant with £2.6 million East of England Development Agency and European Objective 2 funding created a £4.6 million common fund. Over five years this supported 86 projects with total project costs of £20 million. It also created 120 flats in Living over the Shop schemes with housing associations and private landlords. The GYPT initiated three projects within this scheme, valued at £7 million. For the first time, due to the generous support of the Heritage Lottery Fund, the borough council was able to provide the level of resources required to turn around areas of neglect and redundancy in the town. The number of buildings at risk in the urban area has been reduced to 16. A third aim to promote the borough’s heritage along with the protection and enhancement role was a central component of the borough council’s regeneration strategy. The Great Yarmouth Heritage Strategy brought together all groups with an interest in heritage, setting out proposals for the effective conservation, interpretation and promotion of the borough’s heritage. The Great Yarmouth Heritage Partnership, with GreatYarmouth Borough Council, Norfolk Museums and Archaeological Service, English Heritage, the National Trust, Great Yarmouth Local History and Archaeological Society and GYPT, was formed in 1996. Its aims were to protect, enhance, promote, educate, inform and inspire people to the value of their heritage. The borough council has an excellent track record for positive protection with the use of urgent works notices and intervention through repairs notices, compulsory (and negotiated) purchase, and back-to-back arrangements with the local building preservation trust. The borough council’s role was to use its statutory powers proactively through to compulsory purchase order, general vesting declaration and if necessary, the Land’s Tribunal, in confidence that the GYPT would take all the financial risks. The trust acts as the local entrepreneur where there is a lack of private sector activity to save historic buildings. The role as project organiser for the GYPT ensures that the trust can provide project leadership, manage all the site assembly and ownership issues, develop the scheme design and business plans to create viable end uses, and develop the major capital and revenue finance to fund and sustain projects. In 1992, the GYPT was able to save a 16th century timber-framed building complex at Baker Street, Gorleston.The borough council had served a CPO and general vesting declaration, and passed the buildings to the trust, which was carrying all the financial risk.With an Architectural Heritage Fund loan and funding from seven different sources, the trust carried out a £351,000 scheme on buildings with an end value of £190,000. The GYPT became the first trust to work successfully with a housing association (Orbit Housing Association), creating four flats. It reduced its risk, as it was able to lease the upper storeys before the work was complete. The ground floor shop has been let, ensuring a small revenue stream to pump-prime other projects. At Market Row, a 16th century house and shop were severely damaged by fire in 1995. Great Yarmouth Borough Council served a 215 notice and won the case in the magistrate’s court. This legal mechanism can force the repair of a listed building in a conservation area if it can be proved that there had been a detriment to the conservation area. Although the borough won the case, the owners had in the meantime set up a company with no assets and abandoned the building. The GYPT purchased the building for £1, and the shortfall in funding between the £140,000 cost of repairs and the eventual value of the building was met by English Heritage CAPS and a historic building grant from the borough. The structural repairs were completed and the upper storeys leased to Orwell Housing Association, which provided £40,000 for the residential refurbishment. The trust was able to fit out the ground floor shop, obtaining another rent stream to fund further schemes. In 1999 the GYPT purchased 26 South Quay to establish the Norfolk Nelson Museum. The Grade II listed building had been empty for 10 years. The GYPT assembled £575,000 capital funding with six partners (East of England Development Agency, single regeneration budget, GYBC, English Heritage, the port authority, GYPT and the Ben BurgessTrust), who possessed a large collection of Nelson memorabilia. Saving this three-storey 18th century listed building close to English Heritage and National Trust properties helped to build a critical mass of museums on the historic South Quay. The trust took the lead to save the former Tower Curing Works, listed Grade II and the finest example of a Victorian herring curing works. The building was owned by a Panama-registered company based in Athens, which had acquired the building in settlement of a debt. A GYBC urgent works notice stopped the building from further deterioration and a repairs notice encouraged the owners to negotiate with the trust. An Architectural Heritage Fund feasibility study proved the viability of the project. The aim was to restore the building and bring together the county’s maritime
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