Placemaking through Heritage

As part of our goal to protect and enhance the places we live, work and visit, we engage with communities to recognise the value of their heritage and take action to protect it.

The heritage of a place can include the built environment like buildings and structures, the natural environment such as greenspaces and biodiversity, and cultural heritage like food, language, traditions and stories. Heritage can be tangible – we can see it and touch it, or intangible – linked to memories, ideas, knowledge or skills.

Our Placemaking Through Heritage project started in April 2020. It is a three-year project aiming to inspire a creative and vibrant Scotland – motivating local residents to become more involved in looking after, protecting and managing their local place for generations to come.

The project, funded by Historic Environment Scotland, will work within communities across Scotland to recognise the heritage story of that place. Each community has a unique heritage so activities will be tailored to each place and might include developing traditional skills, storytelling, creation of guided walks and heritage trails, and learning about the impact of climate change on heritage.

Our work in this area helps us contribute to UN Sustainable Development Goals 4, 8, 11 and 13.

We will take a hub-based approach, working in a place over a period of several weeks, enabling a greater depth of engagement and a wider range of heritage activities to attract wider audiences, facilitating joined-up working with local groups.

You can see the work going on in some of our hubs below: