Heritage Watch
Kent Heritage Watch
Heritage crime is any offence which harms the value of heritage assets and their settings to this and future generations. It covers a wide variety of activity that is responsible for damaging assets that are of a particular historical interest
This activity can damage assets beyond recovery which can lead to the loss of a piece of history for ever
Due to the very nature of heritage assets putting right damage is costly to the public purse. For example the theft of metal from ancient monuments is leading to repair bills of hundreds of thousands of pounds when damage is caused by removal of the metal and weather damage when roofs are left open to the elements
In Kent (and the seas around), there are:
17,944 Listed Buildings
422 Scheduled Monuments
62 Registered Parks and Gardens
11 Protected Wrecks
2 World Heritage Sites
The aim of heritage watch is to forge a link between these protected heritage sites and the public, to help protect them for future generations and to raise public awareness of the issues that are facing heritage venues, also to promote best practice and communication between heritage venues and supply up to date information with a serious of events both virtual and face to face.
The steering group consists of representatives from Historic England, Kent Police, Kent Fire and Rescue, Counter-Terrorism Advisors and representatives from the security and insurance sectors and owners and managers of heritage sites across Kent and Medway.
Project successes are:
- Linking with Country Eye to report heritage crime via the app, this was supported by a video sponsored by Brook security and starred the Kent Police Rural Team (Oscar nominated) which was narrated by Simon Calder, this proved a very popular medium and is still on our website.
- Initiated 24/7 email alert system supported by Ward security and their control room. We are linked to Essex police and Sussex police who also receive the email alerts, and pass relevant items back to us.
- Sponsored yearly conferences on relevant topics. The conference in 2024 was held at Hever Castle and was very well attended, it was the first time that the heritage film group had attended and attracted over 60 attendees. We also run smaller informative events such as how to run events safely on heritage properties.
- In 2023 in response to the issues around filming in historic buildings we launched Kent Heritage Watch filming group. This proved extremely popular with regular inputs from English Heritage and Historic England.
Media Input
Appearances on BBC Front line fightback and on the ITV local news giving insight into country eye and heritage watch.
The Steering Group
This is a voluntary group, which relies on grants and sponsorship to hold events and conferences.
The group receives sponsorship from the Police and Crime Commissioner's fund and a variety of relevant business across Kent.
The Future
Working closely with Kent police and all heritage sites in Kent we are hoping to expand to cover other areas. We are looking at a curators group, a steam railways group and others. This is in keeping with our core objective which is to keep sites/ areas informed of issues and new trends whilst sharing best practice through good communication.
Kelvin Wood
Kent Heritage Watch Chair
Linked in – heritage watch
X/ Twitter - @kentheritage
Watch the film below for more information: