A Heritage Strategy for South Gloucestershire
The heritage of South Gloucestershire is one of its most valued assets and is a part of our lives on a day-to-day basis. It helps to provide us with a key to both our past and our present through our experience and enjoyment of the physical environment, biodiversity, the countryside and historic sites we visit, and our towns and villages. At another level, it provides for an aesthetic appreciation of our surroundings as well as an appreciation of the social element of our culture through oral history and associations. Together all those elements come together to give us a sense of community and an identity to the places in which we live.
This first heritage strategy belongs to the wider community of South Gloucestershire. Individuals and groups have contributed to its aims and given it direction. Its preparation has demonstrated how much people care about their heritage and how much time and effort is currently being contributed to its stewardship.
Our vision
Our vision for the long term future of heritage in South Gloucestershire is for:
A local heritage protected, enhanced, used and enjoyed by all.
It is this vision which underpins the aims set out in the strategy and the proposals it contains. It will provide a continuing goal and stimulus to develop projects for heritage, achieve best use of our resources and involve people in the decisions which affect it. In the strategy we have set out a programme of projects which the Council will undertake in the future. It identifies ways in which the Council and the community can work together, where priorities lie and where resources need to be directed. It highlights opportunities for bringing together different aspects of heritage in future projects and for different partnerships to help deliver a better and more comprehensive service for heritage in the future.
I am confident of the role that the Heritage Strategy will have in promoting the heritage resource of South Gloucestershire and providing a sound basis for future action.
Councillor Neil Halsall
Leader of the Council
June 2001