What We Do

Our mission is to celebrate Scotland’s built environment, take action for its improvement and empower its communities.

We aim to achieve this through three main strands of activity: Celebrate, Take Action and Advocate. You can read more about our work in our Strategic Plan, and learn about our recent activities in our Annual Reports.

To celebrate Scotland’s built environment, we:

• Coordinate Doors Open Days, which celebrates our shared built and cultural heritage by enabling access to places, spaces, and activities not usually open to the public.
• Organise the My Place Awards, which recognise the impact of regeneration projects on local communities.
• Run the My Place Photography Competition, which celebrates the involvement of young people in the built environment.
• Maintain the Tobacco Merchant’s House as an example of sustainable best practice
• Run annual celebration and networking events for local groups engaging with heritage

To take action and enable community groups to get involved with their local heritage, we:

• Host a network of over 100 local heritage and civic groups across Scotland
• Share resources and best practice for community heritage and built environment projects
• Help local groups engage with their local planning system
• Support marginalised groups, such as women; people of colour; lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people; those in situations of economic disadvantage) to become better represented in heritage
• Encourage the engagement of young people in the civic environment
• Organise conferences and events that stimulate public debate on topical issues

To advocate for and support local voices within the heritage and planning sectors, we:

• Advocate for local members’ issues at a policy level
• Comment on nationally-significant planning issues
• Promote a more inclusive view of Scotland’s heritage
• Research and publish our policies on current issues, for adoption by local groups
• Steer the national Make Your Mark campaign to increase the number and diversity of heritage volunteers
• Advocate for the role of Scotland’s civic amenity groups in Europe and internationally
• Publicise and comment on important issues affecting civic spaces

You can find out more about what we do by looking around our website and checking out our News section. And make sure to be the first to hear about our new and exciting projects by keeping a close eye on our Facebook, Twitter. Instagram and LinkedIn feeds.