We have been asked to publicise the following message:

Heritage property owners, English Heritage, Church Organisations, Police Forces, local authorities, voluntary heritage groups and others have over recent years become increasingly concerned about the loss of and damage caused to historic assets by various form of crime.  Over the past year or so since the formation of the Heritage Crime Initiative and Alliance to Reduce Crime against Heritage (ARCH) considerable progress has been made to highlight the prevalence of crimes such as theft of lead from church roofs.  Despite impressive progress relatively little is known about the level of risks of loss of and damage to different types of heritage asset in different types of area and different regions.

The Centre for Urban and Regional Studies (CURDS) at Newcastle University, Bradley Research and Consulting, the Council for British Archaeology and Loughborough University have been appointed by English Heritage to research the nature and extent of heritage crime affecting heritage assets in England.

By understanding better the scale of different issues in different areas this research will hopefully help to influence strategies both at a local and national level to  tackle the different forms of crime that are damaging England’s heritage assets and affecting owners’ and visitors’ current and future enjoyment of them.

The research covers all forms of heritage asset, both terrestrial and marine:

•     World Heritage Sites

•     Scheduled Monuments

•     Registered Battlefields

•     Registered Parks and Gardens

•     Listed Buildings (by Grade)

•     Conservation Areas

Any member that owns or manages a heritage asset, either a building or land, or any other groups or individuals involved in the care or research of heritage assets that have been affected by crime (including for example theft, arson, graffiti, other criminal damage, unauthorised access, unauthorised metal detecting,), or anti-social behaviour, or that knows about crimes affecting other heritage assets, can make an important contribution to the research by completing the survey. If you have knowledge of heritage assets in your area we would very much like you to click on the link below and complete a short e-survey

https://www.survey.lboro.ac.uk/heritagecrime11

Furthermore, if you have information that you feel you cannot very easily express in the survey but that you would still like to share with us, you can also email the project team, at heritagecrime@britarch.ac.uk.