COVID-19 crisis forces Historic Environment Scotland to scale back actions to protect heritage sites against climate change

Tantallon Castle in Scotland
Tantallon Castle in Scotland Image: PaulT (Gunther Tschuch) Wikimedia CC BY-SA 4.0

Historic Environment Scotland has been investigating how its heritage sites are at risk from climate change for the last ten years. In February this year, the organisation released a climate action plan for 2020-2025. But now, the COVID-19 crisis puts the progress at risk, as the organisation battles with a £53 million deficit.

Ewan Hyslop, Historic Environment Scotland’s lead climate change official, said: “We, like many others, have had to effectively lockdown and close our sites. We moved our normal conservation work onto basic core maintenance.”

But Historic Environment Scotland’s action plan to kickstart a recovery from the COVID-19 crisis makes clear that “a key focus” will be a response to the climate emergency and “maximising carbon savings during any closure period”.

Read the full article on The Herald website.

Read more on COVID-19.

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