Healing the Highstreet

The grant funding comes from the Department of Levelling Up, Housing & Communities, which awarded £21.9 million to the Boston Town Deal Board. The Boston Town Deal Board sees supporting town centre business as a priority, so has committed £3.9 million to the Healing the High Street programme in Boston.

When grant funding is agreed, Heritage Lincolnshire will draw down funds from the Council so that grant payments can be made at regular intervals as work is carried out.

Here’s a map of the area of the grant scheme:

If your shopfront is being replaced it will require planning permission. This should be handled by your architect and the same information will be required for Planning Permission as the grant application, such as detailed drawings of the replacement shopfront. You can find out if your building is Listed on Historic England’s National Heritage List for England at https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/ . If your building is Listed and you want to make changes to the outside or inside of your building, you are likely to require Listed Building Consent.

If you are replacing the signage to the shop, then it will require advertising planning consent. This should be handled by your architect.

It can take around six months to go from a grant application to receiving planning permission if this is required. The development stage of a project can be shorter if no planning consent is required.

Depending on the complexity of the project, the building work can take up to six months too. For more details, please refer to the project flow chart in your information pack.

The scheme is only for the external elements of the building. Although internal areas effected by the installation of a shopfront will be made good.

All sides of the building are eligible, though the segments which make stronger contributions to the conservation area and the quality of the Town Centre will likely be prioritised. Obscured elements (like roofing behind parapets) will also be considered if they help secure the future of the building in the long term.

You would not expect increased insurance premiums. The toughened or laminated glass is likely to provide the same or greater protection as your current shop front. Please check with your insurance provider.

Door Recesses will often be reinstated as part of the grant-funded works. If there is a local security issue these can be shut off when the business is closed using attractive concertina gates which can be funded through the grant.

Yes! These can be attractively incorporated into the new shopfront design and the cost of repositioning can be included in the grant funding. There is also the opportunity to remove redundant security measures and wiring.

Roller shutters usually make an area look worse, especially at night when businesses are shut. There are many other ways to achieve the same level of security and allow people to see your branding and your shopfront. In recesses that we often bring back there can be issues and therefore well-designed gates can be included in the grant.

We will also suggest other ways that you might be able to achieve the security you need without the need for security shutters, such as frosting glazing or internal security measures.

If the scaffolding is required in relation the works covered under the grant scheme, we can contribute to the costs at the same level as works they relate to.

Yes! All architects fees and other professional fees, such as for a Structural Engineer, are covered by the grant at the same levels as the works they relate to.

When grant funding is agreed, Heritage Lincolnshire will draw down funds from the Council so that grant payments can be made to you promptly at intervals as work is carried out.

The grant is paid in arrears, on receipt of invoices for work carried out to date. You will be able to claim up to 95% of your total grant offer (as and when work is carried out) before the issue of a completion certificate, at which point the final payment of any outstanding amount will be made to you.

No problem! Grant payment schedules can be set in negotiation with your Heritage Lincolnshire Project Manager, with the potential to provide for smaller payments (on a case-by-case basis) to ensure that delivering the project does not significantly impact on your businesses’ cashflow.

Your architect or lead contractor should ensure that work is carried out in line with the agreed schedule of works, and planning & listed building consent, if applicable. Isabelle will visit regularly during the building project to check that the work still aligns with the priorities of the grant funding, ensuring that the grant terms are satisfied before the release of funding at each stage.

Before an offer of grant funding is made to you, an outline of the project outputs and costs will be shared with the local grants panel (made up of independent local business people, Councillors and stakeholders) for approval. They will ensure that the proposed work aligns with the aims of the Town Deal and presents a good investment of the Healing the High Street funds.

Your key contact and first port of all for all queries regarding the grant is Katy-Jayne Lintott, Heritage Project Manager for Heritage Lincolnshire:

towndeals@heritagelincolnshire.org

When you have appointed your architect and/or key contractor, they will also be an important contact for discussing the technical details of delivering your building project.

Please do share updates with your customers and partners.

It is important that your grant is acknowledged, and details of your project may also be publicised by Heritage Lincolnshire, the Boston Town Deal Board or Department for Levelling Up Housing & Communities once a grant agreement has been signed. We are likely to provide you with banners or similar branded collateral to display at your building while works are carried out.

If you wish to include funder logos on your own media, these can be provided but any designs may require direct approval from the funder organisations.

Some works are not eligible for any grant funding. These items should be pointed out in early discussions and will be made clear in any grant funding agreement. You may, for instance, decide to carry out a rebrand throughout your business or a re-fit of your shop while external building changes are taking place, and these will not be eligible for Healing the High Street grant funding.

You will be able to choose the contractor who carries out the work, but the grant panel will need to be satisfied that they are suitably experienced and will provide value for money. Ideally, we would like to see tenders from at least three companies; you will not have to choose the cheapest, but whoever you choose will need to present good value for money. Your architect, if one is being used, will often carry out the tender process on your behalf.

We can provide a list of potential contractors if requested, but it will be fine to appoint someone who is not featured on that list provided that they are sufficiently experienced to carry out the work to a heritage standard.