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.
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:
- Encourage the engagement of young people in the civic environment
- 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
- 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
- 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 and Instagram feeds.