Select committee: Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee
Recommendation 5
3rd Report - Protecting built heritage
Published 13 Jul 2026
Addressed to Department for Culture, Media and Sport
Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee Protecting built heritage All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Recommendation (the committee's words)
We recommend that the government adopt a reuse-first approach to housing policy, prioritising the conversion of vacant and under-used heritage buildings before pursuing new build. This approach should embed reuse as a clear priority in the National Planning Policy Framework, directing departments to assess reuse options for surplus sites and ensure that major housing funding mechanisms—including the National Housing Delivery Fund and related Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government programmes—actively support heritage-led schemes, with clear criteria and incentives to address viability barriers. Such an approach must be underpinned by clear safeguards to ensure that reuse does not come at the expense of heritage value, public access or the vitality of high streets. (Recommendation, Paragraph 19)
From: Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, 3rd Report - Protecting built heritage (HC 144), 13 July 2026
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 16 October 2026 (deadline 9 October 2026).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The government welcomes the report and agrees with many of its aims, but says it is "not proposing to adopt" a heritage-to-housing scheme and "not minded to accept" the national dataset recommendation, pointing instead to existing planning, funding and data arrangements.
- On housing, it "agrees" heritage regeneration and tackling vacancy are key priorities, but does "not agree" that national policy should require re-use to be prioritised before new build, citing the target of building 1.5 million new homes.
- On a national heritage dataset, it is "not minded to accept" the recommendation and is "concerned about the feasibility" of gathering and maintaining such information reliably and consistently.
- On funding, it says it "disagrees" that the National Portfolio Organisation model should be adopted for heritage and does not agree the taxpayer should routinely fund core operating costs, preferring capital grants that help custodians generate their own income.
- It commits to update the Committee on the Places of Worship Renewal Fund 6 and 12 months from submission of the report, and to "revert to the Committee in September 2028" on measuring heritage outcomes under the revised NPPF.