Last Thursday, 20th June 2023, The Foyle Civic Trust held its 35th Annual General Meeting. Established in 1989, the group celebrated 35 years of work to promote high standards of planning and architecture, and promotion of features of public and historic interest in the North West. Looking forward, The Foyle Civic Trust introduced the new Built Heritage Project.
The Built Heritage Project will over the next 18 months develop a membership model to support the preservation of built heritage assets in the City. It will set up a model to support historic building owners through provision of advice, guidance, training and assisted management planning and procurement for key measures such as inspections and maintenance.
The Foyle Civic Trust will be working closely with a consortium of four ‘founding’ historic building owners – Saint Columb’s Hall, The Playhouse, An Cultúrlann and The Verbal Arts Centre. A first of its kind for Northern Ireland, the project fosters collaboration between arts organisations that own historic buildings, supported by the heritage sector. The project is supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund.
The 4 members of the consortium, with reference to the 6 buildings in their care, will help to inform the structure of the project for best benefit to users. The model will over the 18 months welcome additional members, with potential to scale to help more historic building owners in Derry-Londonderry and further afield.
The Foyle Civic Trust will also be working with other partners Derry City & Strabane District Council and the Historic Environment Division to develop the project. Subject to funding, the project will proceed to full roll out over the next 3-5 years.
At the event, the new Project Manager, Nikki McVeigh highlighted the ‘stitch in time’ approach. ‘Most of the damage that occurs to historic buildings can be avoided by small scale regular maintenance. Inevitably, defects start as a small problem and grow in scale, cost and urgency if not fixed. Maintaining an historic building with simple, minor works: clearing gutters and drains; fixing slipped slates or tiles; or painting windows or replacing missing putty around glass will avoid deterioration of the building fabric and costs of large scale repair.’
Nikki also highlighted the need for more frequent maintenance in the context of climate change with the most widespread risk being increased intensity of wind, rain, affecting the condition of historic building fabric. Owners will inevitably face additional responsibility and more frequent need in caring for their buildings. The Built Heritage Project is well placed to support owners to address this need.
Peter Tracey, the Chair of The Foyle Civic Trust led the celebrations of the Annual General Meeting and welcomed the new project:
“Following on from sterling work of the Walled City Partnership which involved the refurbishment and restoration of over historic 30 buildings within and contiguous to the Walled City from 2004 to 2018 and which culminated in the Foyle Civic Trust winning the National Heritage Angels award , we see the Built Heritage Project as the next stage in encouraging and enthusing the citizens of Derry in taking pride in the unique sense of place which Derry has to offer. The built environment – and in particular our historic buildings- play a central role in shaping our city and making it a safe place where people enjoy working , living and visiting.
We aim to encourage all to appreciate the small historic details and craftsmanship around us be it the simple sliding sash timber window, the sandstone window cill, the granite kerbstones on our pavements( what’s left of them) , the cast iron decorative street lamp -all which when added together create the whole and gives our city its unique identity and authenticity.
We also wish to encourage young people in learning traditional building skills – skills which are in danger of dying out as a generation grows older- to repair and restore historic details through working together with a number of building owners to create an affordable model through an economy of scale .
We are delighted to have Nikki McVeigh as the new Foyle Civic Trust Project Manager to help spearhead the Built Heritage project and are indebted to the Heritage Lottery Fund for the confidence shown in our organisation to deliver this important and exciting work t for the people of this city. “
If you would like to find out more about The Foyle Civic Trust, and to keep up to date on the Built Heritage Project please go to www.foylecicivtrust.org or email info@foylecivictrust.org
