World Heritage in the UK, An Overview & Current Status - Hadrian's Wall Virtual Networking Days

Session 4: World Heritage in the UK, An Overview and Current Status – Challenges & Opportunities
Speaker: Chris Blandford, World Heritage UK
Thursday 3 March 2022

From the early iconic monument WHSs, the UK list has evolved to include more extensive, diverse, and complex cultural landscapes and cityscapes. Improved approaches to management, partnership, and stakeholder involvement have in part been successfully achieved to support these. However, significant challenges remain: the low awareness of World Heritage values, reduced public spending, and increased pressures for change and development in WHSs and their buffer zones. The WHSs as a whole have become a central part of the national cultural inheritance but a more coherent strategy and vision to promote their role as global assets and to ensure sustainable management in the future is now needed. The recent and comprehensive WHUK Review of UK World Heritage -Asset for the Future has now set out the blueprint for this.