Following a years-long consultation process the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) has launched a call for submissions to a new registry of Living Heritage, which the Countryside Alliance has helped ensure the rural sector can participate in fully. 

Announcing the call for submissions, the DCMS said: 

“The UK-wide inventory will spark a national conversation about the crafts, customs and celebrations valued by communities, helping to safeguard them for future generations.  

“Living heritage encompasses practices passed down through generations – from tartan weaving and dry-stone walling to cèilidh dancing or Gloucestershire’s cheese-rolling and Eisteddfodau or Burns Night. It could also include traditions brought to the UK by immigrant communities, such as the Notting Hill Carnival and steel-drumming. 

"These practices play a vital role in community identity, pride and cohesion, building the foundations for the UK’s growth.” 

The Countryside Alliance has engaged in these government deliberations since the consultation early last year on the first stage of implementing the 2003 UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage. Although the effort relates to this 2003 Convention, the government is not at this stage planning to participate in the international listing and has chosen the term ‘living heritage’ as easier to understand. 

In our submission we argued that while the government always intended to include craft production practices in the register, it should take care to avoid excluding activities directed towards less material outcomes. We argued for a broader set of categories that would allow the inclusion of all stages of food production, of traditional land management practices and of country pursuits that may include a sporting element but are carried out primarily for other purposes. We cited for instance deer stalking, where the primary aim is to support land management and conservation. 

The final set of categories includes, alongside ‘Craftsmanship’ and ‘Sports and Games,’ ‘Nature, Land and Spirituality’ and ‘Culinary Practices.’ We will still need to observe how the listing process operates in practice, but we are satisfied that the scheme design should now meet rural needs. 

The listing of any practice as an aspect of the UK’s living heritage will have no bearing on any legal constraints regarding that activity and must not be seen as a ‘silver bullet’ that will prevent hostile legislation targeting, for instance, hunting or shooting. Nevertheless, a listing does constitute official recognition that an activity forms part of the country’s cultural fabric, and it can be expected to be raised in public and political debates. 

Both the hunting and shooting communities plan to participate fully in the listing process. We will remain fully supportive of efforts from these and other rural pursuits’ appropriate representative bodies. The British Hound Sports Association (BHSA) will act as the co-ordinating body for hunting-related living heritage submissions from its member hunts, with the British Shooting Sports Council (BSSC) expected to co-ordinate those for shooting bodies. Proper organisation within sectors is essential, because the DCMS will not entertain competing submissions relating to the same activity. 

We will keep you updated as the process develops and let you know of anything you may need to do to ensure that the activities you care about are properly represented. To find out more and to view which elements have been submitted as an ‘Expression of interest’, please visit the new registry webpage.