Building Preservation Trusts
The Heritage Trust Network is the voice for building preservation trusts promoting and supporting the rescue and sustainable use of historic buildings. A Building Preservation Trust (BPT) is a not-for-profit organisation whose main aims include the preservation and regeneration of historic buildings.
Over 230 BPTs are members of the Heritage Trust Network. The majority of BPTs are rooted in their local communities. Some cover individual towns, cities, or whole counties. Others specialise in particular types of building. A few cover the whole of the UK. Some were formed to save just one building and others, known as revolving fund trusts, seek to conserve a succession of buildings by repair and finding suitable alternative uses and/or owners.
Building preservation trusts frequently provide a means of addressing heritage at risk. They may acquire sites direct from the owner or from a local authority that is exercising its compulsory purchase powers.
The Prince’s Foundation
The Prince’s Foundation (which merged with the Prince's Regeneration Trust in 2018) is a charity that works with communities throughout the United Kingdom to ensure that important buildings at risk of demolition or decay are rescued, regenerated and re-used for the benefit of the surrounding community.
The Foundation's ethos leads it to concentrate its activities in socially and economically deprived areas; places that will benefit most from the regeneration of the wider community.
The Foundation champions the value of partnerships and works closely with building owners, developers, community groups, local authorities, other public bodies and charities to find sensitive and sustainable new uses for buildings at risk.
Preservation trusts for places of worship
Churches Conservation Trust
The Churches Conservation Trust is a national charity protecting historic churches at risk. It has saved over 345 buildings which attract almost 2 million visitors a year. It was established by the Pastoral Measure 1968, which allows for churches that have been made redundant by the Church of England, for which the diocese has been unable to find any alternative use and which are of exceptional historic, architectural or archaeological significance, to be vested in the Trust by the Church Commissioners.
Friends of Friendless Churches
The Friends of Friendless Churches is a registered charity whose purpose is to save ancient and beautiful churches from demolition and decay. The charity now owns more than 50 Grade II* or Grade I listed churches, including three private chapels and one Non-Conformist chapel, that would otherwise have been demolished, destroyed or inappropriately converted. Half of their properties are in England and half in Wales.
Historic Chapels Trust
The Historic Chapels Trust is a registered charity that takes into ownership redundant chapels and other places of worship in England. The object is to secure their preservation, repair and maintenance for public benefit and encourages suitable new uses. Buildings of all denominations and faiths can be taken into care with the exception of Anglican churches which are eligible for vesting in the Churches Conservation Trust of the Church of England.
