Ms Virginia Teehan:

I thank the committee for inviting the Heritage Council to present again today. I am CEO of the council. As members may recall, Dr. Martina Moloney, chairperson of the Heritage Council and I met the committee two months ago in late November. Today, I am accompanied by my colleague, Ms Alison Harvey, planning officer and project manager for the CTCHC programme.

As outlined at the November meeting, the remit of the Heritage Council is very broad. The topic of today's meeting is of particular interest to us as we have, through many years, demonstrated an authentic commitment to addressing the many issues that impact towns and villages. We welcome the fact the committee shares our concerns in respect of an evident pattern of deterioration of the heritage, historic fabric and economic health of towns and villages.

The Heritage Council, which was established in 1995, is a prescribed body for the purposes of the Planning and Development Acts 2000-2021. The council has specific responsibilities under section 6 of the Heritage Act, which states:

The functions of the Council shall be to propose policies and priorities for the identification, protection, preservation and enhancement of the national heritage, including monuments, archaeological objects, heritage objects, architectural heritage, flora, fauna, wildlife habitats, landscapes, seascapes, wrecks, geology, heritage gardens and parks and inland waterways.

Since its foundation in 1995, the Heritage Council has undertaken extensive research, policy development and delivery to support the planning and management of Ireland’s unique national heritage. Our commitment to supporting historic town centres is evident from our initiation and management of the following key strategic programmes. The Irish walled towns network, IWTN, was formed by the Heritage Council in 2005 to unite and co-ordinate the strategic efforts of local authorities and other stakeholders involved in the management, conservation and enhancement of historic walled towns in Ireland, both North and South. The Heritage Council offers annual grants to the towns that participate in the IWTN.

The historic towns initiative programme was established in 2017. This capital grant scheme for heritage-led regeneration is managed in collaboration with the heritage unit of the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage. In 2021, ten towns benefited from grants from the project. The average value of each grant was €150,000. This year, the budget for the initiative was increased to €2 million and it is currently open for applications.

The collaborative town centre health check, CTCHC, programme was set up in 2016 as a pilot programme in response to the overwhelming level of demand, initially from the private sector, to support the regeneration of historic town centres. We are here today to talk about the CTCHC. It sets out to collect data on economic, social and cultural activities in each individual town. It is a health check for the town. The programme is based on a collaborative approach that includes local and national stakeholders. This collaborative approach guides the design, delivery, and evaluation of economic development, regeneration, and investment programmes in each town. The programme strongly supports the implementation of national polices, including the national planning framework, Project Ireland 2040, Housing for All, Our Rural Future and the Climate Action Plan 2021.

Surveying, data collection and data verification to create digital mapping are at the heart of the programme. A 15-step assessment process is conducted at the outset. Multiple surveys are undertaken in town centres on land use, footfall, business sector confidence, consumer behaviour and patterns, land and building ownership, air and noise quality, etc. Once these location-based data baselines are in place, the overall intelligence gathered enables business and civic leaders to create a roadmap for regeneration and targeted investment. This serves to bring about the renewal of their shared historic environment.

The participatory approach of the programme enables a comparative analysis of the results from towns within the programme. The same types of data collected and assessed are used for all towns. The collective nature of the programme and the uniform nature of the data add to its value. Operating collectively within a combined programme with multiple participants strengthens its impact nationally.

This unique value generation, including the creation of social capital, is recognised by international partners. The programme has recently been selected as one of five best practice case studies by the EU-funded ESPON Heriwell programme, which promotes cultural heritage and heritage-led regeneration as a source of societal well-being. The value of this programme is summarised as follows: it is data driven and evidence based and creates scientific baseline data sets capturing economic, spatial, commercial, social and cultural activities; the process creates spatial data, a geohive, which in turn supports the implementation of UN sustainable development goals; it supports the creation of data for EU funding streams for regeneration of town centres; it creates social capital and public value, and facilitates social cost-benefit analyses; it results in the creation of local regeneration engines; the enhanced collaborative process facilitates increased participatory democracy; the regeneration of historic town centres creates a focus for local communities; and the process results in an enhanced pride, a sense of place and a sense of citizen belonging.

The CTCHC programme is extremely successful. It has grown exponentially since its inception in 2016 and was included in the programme for Government published in June 2020. The commitment in the programme for Government was expressed as follows:

We will... Prioritise a Town Centres First collaborative and strategic approach to the regeneration of our villages and towns, using the Collaborative Town Centre Health Check (CTCHC) framework to gather data and lead actions.

Our work demonstrates that there is a clear need and demand to operate the CTCHC programme nationally. Currently there are 15 towns participating in what, it must be remembered, is a pilot programme. There are 45 towns on a waiting list.

At the Heritage Council we incubate ideas and provide advice and solutions to the key issues which impact heritage and its protection. That is our key function as stated in our founding legislation, the Heritage Act. It is not the role of the Heritage Council to operate programmes such as the CTCHC programme on a national level. As I have stated, the evidence emerging from our work demonstrates a clear need to adopt a national and collaborative approach to seek to resolve the issues facing Irish towns. We very much welcome the work of the Towns Centre First committee under the leadership of the Minister of State, Deputy Peter Burke. It is our hope that the pending Towns Centre First policy will adopt the valuable learnings from the CTCHC programme and recommend that a unit is established at Government level, within the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage, which will be responsible for the roll-out of the CTCHC programme nationally throughout Ireland.

I thank the Cathaoirleach and committee members for their attention. The delivery of the CTCHC programme is detailed and complex. I have done my best in the time allocated today to summarise the key points, outline the programme’s value and impact and convey our recommendation that it is rolled out nationally. We have submitted to the clerk of the committee a detailed document outlining the operation of the programme to accompany our attendance today. Ms Harvey and I are happy to answer queries and provide further information as required. Go raibh míle maith agaibh go léir.