Heritage Maintenance Funds

Heritage Maintenance Funds (HMFs) are trusts that hold funds to pay for the maintenance of historic property. In 2018 Historic Houses and Saffrey produced research into HMFs and how they might better serve heritage and the public. Our research found that reducing the income tax rate to 20% would have resulted in a net economic benefit of £85.5 million by 2023.

As the representative body for around 1,450 independently owned houses, castles, and gardens across the UK, mostly listed at grade I and II* (or equivalent), Historic Houses recognises the importance of finding cost-effective methods of protecting the UK’s heritage. Currently, Historic Houses places face a backlog of repairs totalling c. £2 billion. They want to develop their engagement with visitors and grow their businesses, but their inability to tackle this ever-growing conservation backlog holds them back from doing and contributing more.

Our evidence indicates that reforming Heritage Maintenance Funds (HMFs) would be a highly cost-effective tool to enable historic houses to fund maintenance, drive regional economic growth and support health and wellbeing in our communities

Key take aways of the 2018 report include:

• Generating more private sector money ring-fenced for spending on the maintenance of publicly accessible and nationally important heritage, with an estimated 686 historic houses able to spend an additional £16.2 million in total, annually, on repair, maintenance and conservation

• Increasing public access; historic houses adopting a HMF would open to the public for an additional 20 days annually on average, attracting an estimated 629,000 extra visitors per year. 15% of historic houses that already hold an HMF would open to the public for an additional 35 days annually on average, attracting an estimated 119,000 extra visitors per year and bringing total annual additional visitors to 748,000
• Boosting tourism spending across the UK, with the spending attributable to these additional visitors totalling over £11 million
• Promoting people’s health and wellbeing, with a value of £89.4 million for the UK economy created from these additional visits
• Generating additional tax revenue of £4.6 million by 2023, offsetting part of the costs to the Exchequer

We therefore call on government to reduce income tax on HMFs to 20%; this change to the scheme would result in huge economic and cultural benefits.

You can read more here:

You can also download our HMF infographic here: