South Yorkshire residents encouraged to take part in campaign to protect heritage assets

In October 2019, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government announced a new local heritage campaign to recognise the significance of local areas and places.

The campaign will encourage communities to nominate valued heritage assets, like historic buildings and archaeological monuments, for inclusion in their council’s Local Heritage List.

Councils were able to bid for grant funding to either create or enhance their existing local lists and following a successful bid, South Yorkshire is one of the 22 areas taking part in the campaign, with South Yorkshire Archaeology Service taking charge of the project.

Sarah Cattell, project officer at South Yorkshire Archaeology Service, said: “This is a government-funded project, lead by SYAS, to encourage people to get involved with their local heritage by identifying and nominating heritage assets buildings, monuments, archaeological sites, landscapes for inclusion onto a local list of valued places to be protected through the local planning system.

"We will be working with heritage, civic and local interest groups all across South Yorkshire, but we also want to involve all members of the public in the nomination process, as this is their history and heritage.”

The South Yorkshire Local Heritage List has an interactive online resource where anyone can view existing National and Local List information, find out about the assessment criteria for candidates and nominate historic places for inclusion onto the list.

SYAS are hoping to involve as many people as possible in the nomination process to ensure that everyone has their say.

The website will be launched on September 24, and there will be online and in-person training events across South Yorkshire over the coming months to show people how to identify potential candidates, use the website, and submit nominations.

The first of these events will be held on Friday, September 24, between 12 and 1 pm, with a second on how to get involved on Friday, October 1.

To find out more, email [email protected] or visit local-heritage-list.org.uk/south-yorkshire from September 24.