Evaluating the THI: Measuring the effectiveness of the Townscape Heritage Initiatives in the United Kingdom

The Townscape Heritage Initiatives (THI) was launched in 1998 to assist places where heritage buildings predominated but were also experiencing social and economic distress. The Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) not only set out to help such places but also to determine whether the aid was achieving the Fund's goals. In 1999, the HLF engaged Oxford Brookes University (OBU) to undertake a multi-year evaluation of the success of the THI programme. To date, the THI has provided over 170 pound million to 175 different locations throughout the United Kingdom. In 2004, an article outlining the methodology being used by the OBU team appeared in the academic literature. Seventeen representative sites had been selected and baseline reports prepared between 1999 and 2001. In 2007, the first series of follow-up studies were completed. This article addresses three questions: was it possible to gather the data that the researchers proposed when the evaluation was planned, was it possible to use that data to evaluate the degree to which the stated HLF goals for the programme were met and, finally, in what way is the research likely to be useful to the funding agency? The article presents findings from the research that relates economic, demographic, townscape and other characteristics of places to their potential to benefit from investment in heritage at the urban scale. URBAN DESIGN International (2010) 15, 221-237. doi:10.1057/udi.2010.14; published online 18 August 2010