Heritage feasibility study consultants

If you are considering restoring, redeveloping, or opening up a heritage site to visitors for the first time, or enhancing an existing heritage site, a feasibility study is usually the first step in the development process, and often a requirement before funders, trustees, or councils will commit capital to the next stage.

Planning Solutions Consulting has been preparing heritage feasibility studies for over 25 years, working with local authorities, national park authorities, trusts, and private landowners at historic properties across the UK and the Republic of Ireland. A heritage feasibility study tests whether a proposal for a castle, former industrial site, historic house or other heritage asset is realistic, deliverable, fundable, and financially sustainable once it’s open before significant funding is committed to design and construction.

What our heritage feasibility studies include

Every feasibility study is shaped around a site and a client’s objectives, but our approach typically covers:

• A detailed analysis of the heritage property and, if it is an existing operation, a review of the business itself
• Market analysis and competitive review, assessing the residential drive-time catchment, which involves mapping the population within key drive-time contours to understand realistic audience reach. The wider tourism markets and competitive landscape are reviewed to inform the market assessment. This would be alongside the wider macroeconomic trends impacting the marketplace
• Strategic context and planning policy will both be reviewed to help build the strategic case for investment, and the planning policy will be analysed
• Case study research and benchmarking, analysing comparable transformations of similar heritage properties
• Stakeholder consultation, which identifies opportunities, constraints, red lines, and potential delivery partnerships
• Option development and evaluation, a range of appropriate options are identified and assessed (find out more about our heritage option appraisal work)
• Financial modelling, where we develop a robust income and cost model, with a sensitivity analysis, identifying key income streams and cost centres to test the financial viability of the option
• Delivery plan, identifying a suite of coordinated actions and key funding opportunities to take the preferred option forward

As part of our heritage feasibility studies, we often work with conservation architects, quantity surveyors and other heritage specialists.

Why do you need a heritage feasibility study?

• Preparing a funding bid, for example, to the National Lottery Heritage Fund
• Testing whether a heritage building or site can support new visitor facilities or tourism-led uses, such as, visitor accommodation or other interventions such as craft studio use
• Building a business plan for capital investment for trustees, councillors, or funders

Project examples

• English Heritage: Feasibility study to identify appropriate uses which could potentially be introduced within the Marble Arch structure, a Grade I listed and iconic monument in London
• Breathe Barbury CIC: Carried out a feasibility study to develop a visitor and education centre at Barbury Castle Country Park, an Iron Age hillfort
• Caerphilly County Borough Council: Carried out a feasibility study to introduce visitor accommodation within the grounds of Llancaiach Fawr Manor, a heritage attraction managed by the Council
• East Riding of Yorkshire Council: We carried out a study to identify and evaluate opportunities to enhance the visitor experience and income generation potential at Sewerby Hall and Garden, including its two walled gardens and wider parkland setting
• Pembrokeshire County Council: Prepared a feasibility study and development plan for the transformation of Haverfordwest Castle (Grade I listed) and Governor’s House into a flagship heritage attraction (the site incorporates the Town Museum). Latterly, we were commissioned to provide support for a funding application to the Levelling Up Fund, which secured over £17m
• Tonbridge and Malling Borough Council: We were commissioned to carry out an economic feasibility study to test the viability of introducing a café within Tonbridge Castle
• Elan Valley Trust: A feasibility study exploring future accommodation uses for an 18th-century farmstead in mid-Wales (currently, the offer is based on a bunkhouse-type operation)
• Sedgemoor District Council: We were commissioned to carry out a tourism and leisure demand study to identify a mix of future uses within the historic Bridgwater Docks which feeds into the Bridgwater and Taunton Canal
• Warwickshire County Council, George Eliot Fellowship and Griff House Preservation Trust: Commissioned to carry out a feasibility study and prepare the supporting business case to assess the opportunity to develop a George Eliot Visitor Centre based on bringing to life the rich heritage associated with George Eliot in Warwickshire
• North Somerset District Council: Feasibility study to advise on the development and the property management strategy of the Council-owned seafront concessions to assist with the regeneration of the seaside resort of Weston-Super-Mare

Added value – managing visitor sites

Alongside our consultancy work, our sister company Planning Solutions Limited manages visitor attractions and a brewery. This real hands-on operational experience of managing tourism businesses brings a strong commercial focus to our work.

What our clients say

“Pembrokeshire County Council, in conjunction with a partnership of public, private and third sector organisations, procured PSC to develop a robust feasibility study assessing the potential of Haverfordwest Castle to become a flagship heritage attraction. This was a complex study with a range of professionals involved and PSC managed all the various different subcontractors very effectively throughout the process.

The study itself includes some of the most defendable revenue business planning assumptions that I have seen in studies of this nature. Oftentimes, consultants can be somewhat overoptimistic in their financial assumptions in order to give clients what they want. Such assumptions can then come back to haunt the organisations that went on to deliver projects which ultimately were not financially viable. In this case, I am confident that the figures provided are realistic and achievable. PSC were always professional, quick to respond and willing to make changes to drafts, some of which were quite significant.” Mike Cavanagh, Head of Cultural, Leisure, Tourism and Registration Services Pembrokeshire County Council

Talk to us about your heritage feasibility study

If you’re at an early stage and want to talk through whether a heritage feasibility study is the right next step, we’re happy to have an informal, no-obligation conversation. Please call Richard Linington on 07866 742628 or email richard@pslplan.co.uk