Commentary on the Briefing Papers of the SHUC project’s Work Package 2

Newcastle 02.2015

Introduction

This commentary paper synthesises the results of the Work Package 2 of the JPI-Cultural

Heritage project entitled ‘A Sustainable Future for the Historic Urban Core’ (SHUC). It draws

upon three country briefing papers that were delivered by the partners: TU-Delft, Newcastle

University’s Global Urban Research Unit and University College Dublin. The papers had an

overarching aim of providing knowledge on how approaches, aiming to sustain the historic

urban core, are being reformed in the context of dramatically changing conditions resulting

from the recent economic and fiscal crises. In particular, the role of the state and the extent to

which underlying socio-economic and historical factors shape responses to heritage

management were explored in these endeavours. To this purpose the briefing papers on the

governance of historic cores in the Netherlands, United Kingdom* and Ireland addressed the

following questions: (i) How has the economic crisis impacted on private investment in the

historic urban core?; (ii) How has the economic crisis impacted on public management

approaches to development in historic urban cores?; (iii) What are the impacts of the fiscal

crisis on the distribution of public finance and capacity of local authorities to govern historic

urban environments?; (iv) What are the consequences of the economic and fiscal crises on

locally situated trajectories of change in Dutch, English and Irish cities?; and (v) What

innovative responses have been put in place in these cities?

In doing so the papers mobilised a qualitative case study-based approach. Exploratory studies

have been undertaken in nine second tier cities: Delft, Utrecht and Breda in the Netherlands,

York, Newcastle upon Tyne and Norwich in England, and Limerick, Waterford and Drogheda

in Ireland. The empirical evidence was obtained by using a mixed-method data collection

approach that included: (i) planning and policy documents; (ii) policy statements and practice

reviews available in the public domain; and (iii) expert interviews with representatives of

public, private and community sectors.

* In practice our focus is upon England. Similar patterns can be seen elsewhere in the UK but the detailed legislative and governance framework is different between the different nations in the UK.

This commentary paper which brings the outcomes of the nine case studies consists of 3

sections. Section 1 looks at the impacts of the economic and fiscal crises in three national

country contexts. Section 2 explores how (post-) crisis challenges are experienced in nine case

study cities that differ significantly with respect to their demographic prospects, geographical

location, economic development factors and local governance networks. Section 3 enquires

into local responses and innovative policy approaches to the governance of the historic urban

core that nine Dutch, English and Irish cities have mobilised to address the financial crisis.

1. Impacts of the financial crisis in the national contexts

The impacts of the financial crisis presented to historic urban cores in the Netherlands,

England and Ireland are profound and relate to predominantly the same processes: (i) halt of

private investment in the city; (ii) cuts in public funding for conservation and heritage-related

regeneration initiatives; and (iii) decreasing capacity of local authorities to actively manage

urban change. They however vary, both between countries and between different case study

cities, in terms of symptom features, their severity and the capability of multi-scalar

governance networks to address them. The economic shockwave rippled through cities at a

time when their economies were significantly linked to real estate development. In the

Netherlands the early 2000s had seen a number of costly large publicly funded projects, such

as railway station and waterfront developments, whose ultimate success was largely

dependent on private real estate developments that have not followed. Further schemes which

had been scheduled for the post-crisis period were faced with delays, as well as presenting

enormous pressures on shrinking local authority budgets. Over more than a decade preceding

the crisis, English cities had seen remarkable physical improvements to their cores, through

generously publicly funded public realm schemes in particular, and accommodated a

tremendous amount of new build housing and retail development. As a result of the crisis

many schemes were axed, some delayed, and vacancy rates in the completed developments

have been high. In Ireland, where the economic output had doubled in the decade of the Celtic

Tiger preceding the crisis, the economy was most dependent on an overheated real estate

industry. Hence, the shockwave of the downturn – comprising 9% GDP contraction between

2007 and 2010, halving the value of the real estate markets, and radical austerity measures

linked to IMF/ECB bailouts - was felt most.

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The outcomes of the crisis varied also as a result of differences between: (i) national

conservation systems; (ii) heritage funding regimes; and (iii) capacities of local authorities in

the three countries to manage urban change. While both UK and the Netherlands have had

strong, long-established conservation systems, a comprehensive built heritage conservation

system in Ireland was elaborated in 2000, and its enforcement was relatively weak before the

crisis. This is coupled with traditionally strong development control system in the

Netherlands, a ‘balanced’ English approach, and laissez-faireist Irish regime that privileges

private property and freedom of investment. Moreover, while in the Netherlands local

authorities have traditionally been key development regulators and landowners, in England

both planning powers and distribution of financial resources are more centralised, and in

Ireland the local authorities have been the weakest actors out of the three countries. The post-

crisis cuts in local authority staffing have also been most profound in Ireland, where an

embargo on any new civil service appointments was introduced, than in the UK, and the

Dutch local authorities suffered least from the loss of professional conservation expertise.

Last but not least, the funding for heritage in the Netherlands had been the most generous

before the crisis, in England it had been on a steady downward trend before the crisis and was

not impacted much in the crisis period, and in Ireland it had been low in pre-2008 period and

has shrunk dramatically through the crisis.

2. (Post-) crisis challenges and local development factors

The recorded outcomes of the economic and fiscal crises have also significantly varied in the

local context. First, the impacts on the historic urban core depended on the characteristics of

the settlement systems. All three Dutch case study cities – Delft, Utrecht and Breda – have

had historically well-defined and well-preserved urban cores from a pre-industrial area and an

established legacy of city living. The English cities differ from one another in this regard.

While all three of them have well-defined boundaries of historic cores that are located within

the bounds of medieval settlements, each city is characterised by a different settlement

pattern. While core city populations are much less dense than in the case of the cities in the

Netherlands, York, with its long history of city living, most resembles the Dutch settlement

pattern that is bolstered by strong anti-sprawl development policies reinforcing new

developments within the existing – both urban and rural – settlements. In Newcastle, as in

most industrial cities in England, the population of the historic urban core is marginal, and the

city as a whole accommodates just a third of the population of the conurbation. In Ireland,

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where a strong attachment to rural living and weak greenfield land development control

prevail, a large share of new housing units are delivered in out of town locations.

When the post-2008 no-growth challenges are concerned, it must be noted that the dynamics

of economic growth and real estate development are set to differ significantly in nine case

study cities as a result of varying demographic trends. Compared to other European countries

the UK finds itself in a quite unique position given its sharp demographic growth that -

coupled with long-lasting undersupply of housing – presents an opportunity to remediate no-

growth and boost real estate development. The demand for housing is particularly high in

York, relatively strong in Norwich, and in Newcastle, which saw depopulation over past

decades, the demographics have also picked up. In York in particular, but also to certain

degree in Norwich and Newcastle, this presents an opportunity to introduce new housing

functions to the historic urban core. While the three Dutch cities have been very successful in

terms of urban living, the demographic pressures there are weaker and housing markets are

relatively saturated with available housing. In Ireland, which saw the highest population

growth but also an extensive oversupply of housing in the time of Celtic Tiger, the

demographic trends have reversed as a result of emigration. The demographic projections are

even more downbeat in Limerick, Waterford and Drogheda, where the economy contracted

more than in other urban centres of the country.

Population of case study cities Local authority Urban area

NLDelft 100,000 TU DELFTUtrecht 331,000 TU DELFTBreda 180,000 TU DELFT

UKYork 198,000 234,000Newcastle 280,000 1,650,000Norwich 140,000 200,000

IrelandLimerick 57,000 91,000Waterford 46,000 52,000Drogheda 30,000 39,000

Figure 1. Populations of case study cities

The dynamics of local economies have profound implications on the capacity of local

authorities to govern historic urban cores. Compared to other European urban economies, the

three Dutch case study cities have seen relatively moderate economic contraction and low

rises in unemployment. In Utrecht, in particular, a well-diversified local economy with strong

presence of high-tech industries and buoyant retail has remained strong, Delft retained its

position, and in Breda the decrease in tourism has not erased major economic gains of the

preceding decade. The three English cities bring a mixed picture to the fore. York, similarly to

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London rather than to the rest of the North of England, and thanks to growing tourism, a

strategic position in the rail network and its synergic relations with economically healthy

Leeds, has evaded the recession altogether. In Norwich some downward trends were noted in

the first two years of the crisis, but as a regional centre with a strong position in the retail

hierarchy, the city has proven to be resilient to the economic downturn. Newcastle’s

economy, as opposed to the previous two cities, suffered heavily from economic losses, the

investment in the historic urban core almost completely halted and unemployment rate

returned to very high levels. Three Irish cities which – like Newcastle – had earlier undergone

a painful deindustrialisation period and still are a home to high numbers of low-skilled

workers – seem to have economically suffered most from the financial crisis: some major

employers left these cities altogether, unemployment rocketed, demand for urban land has

been very low and some earlier redeveloped areas have fallen into dereliction.

The capacity of local authorities in the nine cities concerned follows the earlier mentioned

national trends in the three countries. Local government in the Netherlands has been in the

strongest position and is still considered the main caretaker of the historic urban core. But

although it retains its regulatory powers, it has lost much of its investment capacity. A number

of Dutch local authorities lost financially on the gamble they had made before the crisis whilst

buying large swathes of rural land that now do not present much development opportunity.

Delft overinvested in a large scale redevelopment project of the railway station area and

Breda overspent on the failed bid for European Capital of Culture 2018. In England, where

the distribution of funding is much more centralized, local authorities suffered much from

draconian spending cuts put forward by the Coalition Government. The financial crisis, in the

case of the UK, was coupled with an ideological turn in Westminster, with a tight budget that

is anti-state, but anti-local state in particular. The scale of cuts has hit Newcastle hardest,

since – being less affluent than York and Norwich – its budget is most dependent on

governmental grants, and both the city and the region are most dependent on public sector

employment. The New Localism agenda, the benefits and pitfalls of which are still relatively

under-researched, also weakens the planning power of local authorities. For the three Irish

cities the country’s default meant an impending disaster. Limerick City Council had no

conservation officer for a decade, and only recently has received one as a result of the merger

of local councils; in the case of Drogheda local government reform meant the evaporation of

its local authority.

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Last but not least, the severity of the consequences of the crisis in the SHUC case study cities

depended much on the capacity of non-state actors to govern and invest in historic

environments which significantly differs between the three countries. In the case of England,

the presence of a buoyant voluntary sector, well-established amenity groups in particular, is

set to become even more significant for the governance of historic urban cores than it has

been over the past years. Hence, York - where York Civic Trust plays a role in monitoring

the appropriateness and quality of planning applications and where York Conservation Trust

owns and manages a sizeable portfolio of historic buildings – and Norwich, where the

voluntary sector has a significant role in formulating branding strategies for the city’s heritage

and leases historic assets that the Council owns, are better placed to adapt to the next coming

shockwave of cuts to grants from the Department for Communities and Local Government

(DCLG) than Newcastle where the capacity of the voluntary sector is limited. In the

Netherlands, self-established organisations of landowners and businesspeople, such as

Between the Façades or Inner City Administrative Consultation Board in Delft, will have an

increasing role to play.†

3. Responses to the crisis and innovative policy approaches

3.1. Increasing participation of non-state actors in the governance of the historic urban core

While both the investment and planning capacity of local authorities are set to become more

stretched in all three countries, there is an interest among policymakers to develop innovative

policy solutions. In the face of their shrinking capacity local authorities are increasingly

seeking to pass some responsibilities for built heritage to private actors, local communities

and voluntary organisations. This, to different degrees, involves transferring some of the

planning powers, management responsibilities and legal ownership to non-state actors, in

England in particular. The UK has seen the process of passing of public assets, public

services, and the civil service itself on to private and voluntary sectors for a few decades.

While processes of privatisation and deregulation of public services have formed the core of

neo-liberal restructuring for a long time, the Coalition Government has done much work to

secure further involvement of the voluntary and community sectors in urban governance

networks. This has been most apparent in the formulation of a doctrine of ‘Big Society’ that

was designed to encourage citizens and local communities to take powers and responsibilities

† Unsufficient data in the UCD Briefing paper 2 to comment on the role of the voluntary sector in Ireland.

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in their hands. While the idea of the Big Society proved to be so vague and unconvincing that

the Government silently dropped it, pieces of policy and legislation such as NPPF and the

Localism Act, boosted by some new relatively small streams of funding available from the

governmental departments and the Homes and Communities Agency (HCA), have opened up

new avenues for strengthening the role of local communities, amenity societies and private

companies in the governance of the historic urban core. York and Norwich seem to be leading

cities in terms of the capacity of non-state actors to co-govern the historic urban core. Local

civic amenity organisations play a significant role in monitoring planning applications in

both cities; land trusts and housing associations have managed to acquire a portfolio of

historic properties in York (over many decades in some cases) and successfully bid to secure

funds for renovation from different public streams; and in Norwich, where the local authority

owns an abundant amount of historic assets but refrains from transferring full ownership and

thus control to non-state actors, civic organisations manage some of the Council’s historic

assets through a long lease system and are important in developing marketing and

management strategies for parts of the historic core. .

In the Netherlands local authorities seem to have become more successful in engaging

dispersed private landowners and the business community in the management of the historic

urban core. In Delft self-emerged groups of business people and umbrella organisations, such

as Between the Façades and Inner City Administrative Consultation Board, take an active part

in designing a coherent functional layout of the shopping areas throughout the historic urban

core, in offering advice to entrepreneurs, and in establishing a system of private sector grants

for new start-ups. In Breda privately-funded conservation projects such as ‘Costaplein

Nieuwstad’ have emerged, whereby members of the Old Dutch Bourgeoisie invest in

restoration of historic buildings and management of cultural heritage, and by doing so

enhance the cultural capital of the historic urban core and value of the properties. In Utrecht,

the local authority encourages private business to take part in the governance of the public

realm.

3.2. Recalibration of the role of the local state in new governance networks

Encouraging non-state actors to co-govern and co-fund historic assets, which has been one of

the key outcomes of the financial crisis, involves a recalibration of the role of local authorities

in governance frameworks. While the shift from government to governance has intensively

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permeated most of the domains of both national and local state in Britain over the past

decades, in the Netherlands local authorities retained the privileged regulatory role. The

transfer of financial responsibility for the historic environment to non-state actors requires a

shift in mind-set by the local authority from paternalism to partnership. This includes

intensifying attempts to democratise the city planning and management process, as seen in

Breda, and relaxation of spatial development regulatory frameworks imposed by local

authorities in Delft and Utrecht. In particular, a tendency to relax the zoning plan has been

prominent in Utrecht, where the plan is to “contain minimal fixed terms and programmes to

let the market decide” (City of Utrecht, 2007), and in Delft, where the zoning plan envisages a

number of permit-free interventions. Such changes in the planning legislation point to the

gradual change of the role of the Dutch local authorities from ‘leading care takers’ to

‘facilitators’ and enablers (Nadin et al, 2014). On the one hand, private actors are being

increasingly encouraged to co-fund the changes in historic urban cores and, on the other,

planning authorities are scaling back the scope of their regulatory powers, and simplifying

and streamlining the planning process.

While zoning plan regulations are relaxed local authorities are still responsible for providing

overall vision through the delivery of structure plans, as well as through imaginative local

planning and design guidance. Such repositioning of the local authority has been experienced,

with some success, but not without conflict, in the UK for the last 20 years. Much of the city

centre visioning has been done through non-statutory master plans that aim at elaboration of

new visions for the historic urban core, city branding, building investor confidence and real

estate management. The turn towards non-statutory design-led master plans in the governance

of urban cores has rebalanced the governance networks in the UK. First, it allows local

authorities to bypass a slow central government endorsement process. Second, the new

generation of master plans enables stronger involvement of the private sector - urban design

firms, private consultants, landowners and real estate development companies – in shaping the

urban core. In seeking to cut and redistribute costs of both physical intervention and oversight

of the historic environments, the new governance networks tend to horizontally disperse a

range of governance activities – (i) regulation; (ii) incentives and stimulation; (iii) direct

physical intervention; and (iv) communication and evidence base - that traditionally were a

domain of the state. Figures 2, 3 and 4 represent the changing structure of the inter-scalar

historic urban core governance networks in the Netherlands, England and Ireland, as well as

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point to the programmes, policies and initiatives that we address in the remainder of this

paper.

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THE NETHERLANDS

Character of intervention Actors & partnerships

Modificationsin use

Spatialmodifications

Localgovernment

Regionalgovernment

Nationalgovernment Quangos Civil society

Privateagencies

Regulation

visionmore flexible zoning planpublic-private partnership & communication

listing & supervisionenvironmental lawheritage and spatial law

Incentives & Stimulation

subsidies for renovation of monuments and energy saving projectslow cost loansjob creation (use of Social Security Fund)

Subsidiesconsultancy

50 M Euro Fundtax reduction

national restoration fund

access to fundsbusiness owners unions

Intervention

re-use of vacant historic buildingsredesign of redundant commercial space

redesign of public space

public space maintenance & upgradingstation area redevelopment

small scale building improvement

special projectsadvice to local government

Communi-cation & evidence base

citizen meetingsbuilding inventory value maps

research projects research projects

Figure 2. Historic urban core governance networks, policies, programmes and initiatives in the Netherlands

ENGLANDCharacter of intervention Actors & partnerships

Modificationsin use

Spatialmodifications

Localgovernment

Regionalgovernment

Nationalgovernment Quangos Civil society

Privateagencies

Regulation

relationships of the HUC with wider area &new developments

elaboration of planning frameworksnon-statutory planning & design documentsshared planning staff between councils

strategic legislationendorsement of statutory local plans

English Heritage (EH) as a regulatory body

neighbourhood planning

outsourcing & privatisation of planning services (i.e. Capita Group)

Incentives & Stimulation

Living over the Shop (LOTS)

LAs provide financial leverage to developers and build confidence to lenders through becoming guarantors

non-existent at present following the loss of Regional Development Agencies (RDAs) in 2010

grants from the Department for Transport (DfT) used for public realm improvementsenergy optimisation grants from the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) Homes and Communities Agency (HCA) grants

EH and Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) grants

funding from private trustsfeasibility studies

Intervention regenerationownership & acquisition of landstrategic land swaps

ownership & maintenance of historic assets

acquisition and restoration of historic assets by building preservation trusts

development & investment (significance of big players, e.g. the Church of England and universities)

Communi-cation & evidence base

character appraisalpublic engagement

interpretation, branding and promotionpublic engagement

BIDsinterpretation, branding and promotion

Figure 3. Historic urban core governance networks, policies, programmes and initiatives in England

IRELAND

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Character of intervention Actors & partnerships

Modificationsin use

Spatialmodifications

Localgovernment

Regionalgovernment

Nationalgovernment Quangos Civil society

Privateagencies

Regulationencouraging re-use and adaptation

elaboration of development plans (zoning, listing, non-statutory design frameworks, Architectural Conservation Areas (ACAs) an Areas of Special Planning Control(ASPCs))development management

Architectural Heritage Protection Guidelines for Planning Authorities (AHPGDA)NZAHgrant policy on architectureplanning legislation (Department of Arts, Heritage & the Gaeltacht (DAHG) & Department of the Environment, Community & Local Government (DECLG)

An Taisce: The National Trust for IrelandRoyal Institute of the Architects of Ireland (RIAI)professional institutesother local civil society organisations (?)

Incentives & Stimulation

encouraging re-use and adaptation

limited public sector-led spatial change

tax incentives (Living Over the Shop, Section 23, Living City Initiative)Lottery (2014)

Intervention

conservation projectspublic realm improvementsadministration of grants

Office of Public Works grants grants (?)Irish Georgian Society (IGS)An Taisce

private sector development

Communi-cation & evidence base

local listingheritage plans (e.g. Drogheda Heritage Plan)

National Inventory of Architectural Heritage (NIAH)

Walled Town Networknational representation of heritage

An Taisce - education, PR & lobbying

Figure4. Historic urban core governance networks, policies, programmes and initiatives in Ireland

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While the new governance arrangements help local authorities to cut their operational costs

and increase the overall capacity of the whole network of actors to share expertise and explore

new ideas and funding opportunities, there are pitfalls. Most importantly, there is a risk that

the economic rationale behind the new governance networks and the greater permissiveness

of the planning system, which strengthen agency of private-for-profit actors, will favour the

return of investment over other cultural values. For example, , economic interests of investors

might outweigh intrinsic values of historic assets, and the specific values of well-resourced

amenity groups might silence cultural interpretations of other groups in society. Ultimately

local authorities in each country remain accountable for balancing different values and

interests, and thus guarding the physical quality and socio-cultural significance of built

heritage.

3.3. Financial incentives: exploring cocktail funding opportunities

While the economic crises resulted in a significant reduction of heritage grants, in the

Netherlands and Ireland in particular, a number of funding opportunities continue to exist in

all countries. The key change which has taken place in the funding environment sits in its

dispersion, both in regards to donors and to key objectives of available grants. While the

funding from national heritage bodies is limited and most of pre-crisis regeneration funding

streams were depleted, private property owners, civic organisations, and local authorities are

faced with a need to seek – in more creative ways - grants and loans from different bodies.

Although grand public realm schemes that had been at the forefront of pre-crisis regeneration

activities lost their momentum in 2008, new opportunities for city centre renewal have arisen

within the environmental sustainability agenda. A transition to the low carbon economy and

the commitment of central governments to tackling fuel poverty, in the Netherlands and in the

UK in particular, offers new potentials to historic urban cores. This includes re-use,

conservation and refurbishment of historic buildings for greater energy efficiency. While in

England low carbon energy grants have been used in York to support ‘Living above the Shop’

(LOTS), in Utrecht the local authority has set up a special energy fund of its own that

provides low cost loans specifically for energy-efficient conservation of historic city-image-

determining buildings.

Fiscal incentives continue to operate in the Netherlands and Ireland. Due to oversupply of

housing in suburban areas a new Irish ‘Living Cities’ fiscal initiative, that specifically aims at

encouraging people back to Georgian buildings, has some limited potential to attract families

to live in the historic urban core. However, such an initiative might be more viable in cities

like York, where LOTS are successful, suburban development controlled, and housing costs

very high. Tax incentives in the UK remain an unexplored opportunity and VAT exemptions

promote new build development over conservation of historic assets. Last but not least, new

funding opportunities can emerge within the private sector, for example in the case of Inner

City Administrative Consultation Board in Delft. Most of all, as sources are less generous and

more dispersed, carrying out complex physical work often requires exploration of

opportunities for cocktail funding and securing multi-goal synergies.

3.4. Continuing physical regeneration efforts

Although funding opportunities are increasingly stretched, cities in the Netherlands, England

and Ireland continue their efforts to deliver physical regeneration. For example, first, a

comprehensive multi-disciplinary regeneration and conservation initiative of the Waterford

historic core, known as the Viking Triangle, has been recently undertaken by the City Council

with the aim of strengthening the cultural identity of the city and generating new economic

and tourism potential. Second, Dutch cities have sought to maintain the momentum of large

urban projects. While Delft has almost gone bankrupt on an uncompleted and significantly

delayed railway station area project, another mixed used complex of the kind is planned

around the new high-speed railway station in Breda that is currently under construction.

Third, each of the English cities considered has sought to sustain some continuation of the

‘public realm’ legacy of the ‘Urban Renaissance’ (see: Urban Task Force, 1999). While

generous regeneration schemes from the late 1990s and early 2000s were depleted and

discontinued after 2008, local authorities across the UK can access funding designated to

transport improvements, in particular those that promote sustainable mobility. The Council’s

recent Reinvigorate York Project builds on synergies between removal and reduction of car

traffic in parts of the walled city, improvements to the public realm and landscaping. The

philosophy of the project dwells on a vision of the city as a network of public spaces

connected by a network of pedestrianised spine routes and “shared slow traffic spaces’ used

by privileged vehicles, cyclists and pedestrians. Newcastle also continues with small scale

public realm improvements using cocktail funding from the Department for Transport (DfT)

and Section 106 agreements, as well as builds on small scale synergies with a recent

comprehensive railway station development.

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3.5. Innovative management of Local Authorities’ assets and purchasing power

Local authorities can also innovate through the management of their own land assets and

purchasing power. While some Dutch local authorities incurred financial losses on pre-crisis

rural land acquisitions, Limerick and York have used the crisis as a window of opportunity to

buy land at cheaper rates and, by doing so, increased their own bargaining power in

negotiations on potential future developments. The case of ‘York Central’, a strategic 35-

hectare inner city brownfield development site located at the back of the present York Central

Station, constitutes an example of a successful land assembly strategy whereby the Council

used a new potential of borrowing against future income to acquire strategic plots on the large

site. A partnership with Network Rail was recently established that will deliver 480 new

homes and deliver 860,000 sq. ft. of office space. In the case of Limerick, the City Council

recently purchased a large site called Opera Centre hoping to use it to develop a part of the

medieval core in cooperation with the University of Limerick and Limerick Institute of

Technology, and to create a new regeneration catalyst area with cultural functions. York City

Council also used its purchasing power for heritage gain when developing its own new

offices. When its proposed new build development on the Hungate site met opposition from

English Heritage (EH) on heritage grounds, the Council decided to drop the contested scheme

and convert a historic train station. The new civic centre that was built in 2014 set a

benchmark for creative conservation in the city, has enlivened local businesses around the old

station, attracted a new scheme for a 5-star hotel and is helping to consolidate a new

development cluster in the area. In a similar fashion the City of Utrecht is looking at the

possibility of conversion of a vacant post office building from 1921 into the new City Library,

which would replace an earlier proposal to develop a grand-design contemporary scheme.

3.6. Bridging physical and non-physical initiatives

Last but not least, the adverse economic conditions encourage wider governance networks to

deliver more for less, and new programmes emerge that bridge physical and non-physical

initiatives, as well as cultural and social dimensions of urban regeneration. In Ireland the

National Lottery has launched a Built Heritage Jobs Leverage Scheme that is to be co-funded

by the private sector and is designed to deliver new jobs through heritage construction, and

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the City of Utrecht is looking at designing a similar scheme which will tackle youth

unemployment and provide young people with vocational training.

Given the recognition of increasing potentials of historical tourism, that for places like York

forms a major economic driver, cities in all three countries have intensified their economic

strategies around tourism promotion and branding. Drogheda and Limerick are implementing

heritage-led physical redevelopment in designated ‘heritage-quarters’ for this purpose, and

Breda – despite its failed bid for the European Capital of Culture 2018 and a decrease in

visitor numbers over the past few years – continues holistic imaginary exercises geared at re-

inventing itself as a city of cultural tourism. In Norwich a private heritage-focused charitable

trust called Norwich HEART has a major role in the city’s heritage-marketing and

regeneration strategies. For example, HEART recently has sought to narrate Norwich’s vast

and diverse heritage into a coherent whole through a focus on twelve key building landmarks.

This was undertaken jointly with the City of Ghent under the ‘SHAPING 24’ - 12 landmarks

in Norwich and 12 in Ghent - Interreg IV Programme that involved international branding of

the city, organisation of heritage festivals, cross-advertising campaigns between the two

cities, international collaborative learning and guiding Norwich’s visitors between the

‘Magnificent 12’ through an innovative system of street signage.

While many of city-branding heritage-based initiatives are quite opportunistic and put

conservation approaches at risk of being subsumed into economic strategies and the built

heritage of being commercialised, a current Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) funded ‘Old

Newcastle’ project is aimed at bringing tangible and intangible dimensions of heritage

together with educative and socially integrative activities. The project is delivering a heritage-

led education and interpretation centre in the vacant medieval Black Gate complex. Physical

interventions in this case will be accompanied by a series of meetings, workshops and cultural

events involving the City Council, the Cathedral, academic staff and students based at

Newcastle University’s Culture Lab’, local artists, youth from Newcastle and Gateshead and

wider communities of interest.

Conclusions

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This paper synthesised the outcomes of three national briefing papers that were delivered as a

part of SHUC Work Package 2. It looked at some convergences and divergences between the

challenges that the project’s nine case study cities – namely Delft, Utrecht and Breda in the

Netherlands; York, Newcastle upon Tyne and Norwich in England; and Limerick, Waterford

and Drogheda in Ireland – face as a result of the recent economic and fiscal crises. It also

enquired into policy responses and innovative approaches to the (post-) crisis governance of

historical urban cores that the local authorities and wider governance networks mobilise in

these cities. While the nine cities differ significantly with respect to their demographic

prospects, urban form, strengths and weaknesses of their local economies, capacity of local

authorities to govern urban change, the embeddedness of their governance frameworks in

three different national planning and policy systems, and local path dependencies the authors

concluded that, to varying degrees, the (post-)crisis challenges they face and responsive

approaches they have taken situate them on similar governance pathways.

The economic crisis most severely impacted local economies in the three Irish cities and in

Newcastle, had less severe outcomes for Delft, Breda and Norwich, and nearly no contraction

occurred in historically buoyant economies of Utrecht and York. Furthermore, in England the

severity of the crisis has been to a great extent mitigated by high demographic growth and

continuing housing demand that keeps to stimulate the real estate industry. The Netherlands,

which is on the verge of demographic decline, and Ireland, where migration trends have

reversed as a result of the economic shockwave, are faced with an increasing challenge of

tailoring urban cores for aging populations.

The paper has argued that as a result of the crisis in all the SHUC case study cities local

authorities face challenges of stretched resources and their policy approaches to management

and regulation of the historic cores, which had earlier varied significantly through time, have

converged towards a more neo-liberal - but based on greater involvement of diverse civic

groups – model. Amongst others this model involves increasing participation of non-state

actors in the governance of the historic urban core, and recalibration of the role of the local

state in new governance networks. While such multi-scalar and multiple-actor governance had

been characteristic for Anglo-Saxon countries for a few decades, and their prevalence was

reinforced throughout the crisis, for the Netherlands it means a substantive redefinition of the

role of the local state.

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Overall, while all nine case study cities have innovated in the ways through which they

govern historic urban cores, the Dutch and English governance networks have proven to be

more resilient to the economic crisis than the Irish ones. Furthermore, it is argued that (post-)

crisis financial pressures have often helped in designing new creative strategies for bridging

physical initiatives with non-physical ones, as well as cultural heritage with economic

development and social integration. It is also argued that while local authorities increasingly

transfer the ownership and management of historic assets and elements of the planning

process to non-state actors, their overall governance capacity is weakened and hence they

should seek new innovative ways to secure the intrinsic values of built heritage against its

marketised interpretations of private-for-profit actors and dominant cultural values of

powerful civic groups.

References:

City of Utrecht (2007) Discussienota Binnenstadt. Utrecht: City of Utrecht.

Miciukiewicz, K. & Pendlebury, J. (2014) Impacts of the economic and fiscal crises on the

governance of historic urban cores in England:  the case studies of York, Newcastle

upon Tyne and Norwich. SHUC Briefing Paper 2: United Kingdom.

Nadin, V., van der Toorn Vrijthoff, V. & Zhou, J. (2014) A Sustainable Future for the

Historic Urban Core. SHUC Briefing Paper 2: The Netherlands.

Pendlebury, J. & Miciukiewicz, K. (2014) A Sustainable Future for the Historic Urban Core:

Conservation System and Heritage Funding in the UK. SHUC Briefing Paper 1:

United Kingdom.

Redmond, D., Waldron, R. & Scott, M. (2014) The Rise and Demise of Ireland’s ‘Celtic

Tiger’ economy and its Impacts upon Historic Urban Cores. SHUC Briefing Paper 2:

Ireland.

Urban Task Force (1999). Towards an Urban Renaissance. Final Report of the Urban Task

Force chaired by Lord Rogers of Riverside. London: Department of Environment,

Transport and the Regions.

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