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| World Heritage: Celebrating Cornwall's international impact |
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Page 2 of 2 World Heritage status for this landscape legacy offers many benefits. Heritage is an important catalyst in economic regeneration. Over £40 million of inward investment has so far been generated for the conservation of the World Heritage Site landscape, supporting hundreds of construction industry jobs. Conversion of previously redundant industrial buildings re-invigorates urban areas whilst preserving their unique sense of place. Town’s like Hayle and Camborne have a proud tradition of industrial achievement as an integral part of their identity. Sympathetic re-use of the buildings that are a testament to this is both socially and environmentally sustainable. Just over a year on from the achievement of World Heritage status, significant progress has also been made in pursuing other aspects of the partnership’s goals. We have implemented projects which communicate the outstanding importance of the Cornish Mining landscape and the pivotal role the people who formed it played in shaping the world we live in today. An advertising campaign launched at Paddington station has been seen by over 20 million rail and tube passengers, backed by a website (www.cornishmining.com) that conveys the amazing stories behind the stunning imagery. Our cultural events programme took the play Tin and Fishes, about the changing life of the mining community of St Just, to 17 venues across Cornwall and Devon, and funded a Cornish Carol writing initiative that involved 40 schools and brought together choirs which had never had the opportunity of performing together before. Co-operation and partnership are perhaps the most important aspect of UNESCO’s World Heritage Convention. In line with this principle, the WHS Partnership instigated the creation of the Cornish Mining Attractions Marketing Association, bringing together 17 tourist attractions to improve quality standards and to pioneer new, collaborative marketing opportunities. World Heritage status presents huge opportunities to reach out to the international tourism market, and get in contact with the 6 million descendants of the Cornish mining diaspora. The Department for Culture Media and Sport have endorsed our proposal for an extension of World Heritage status to countries including South Africa, Australia and Mexico, where the Cornish mining influence has shaped the development of their countries. We are currently researching the breadth and depth of Cornish mining migration, capturing data about where people travelled to and what remains of these communities today. Whilst valuable in its own right, this research will also inform future marketing activities, and provide a valuable link into the Visit Britain tourism campaigns that will seek to benefit from the influx of overseas tourists to the 2012 Olympics. Our top priority for the coming year will be extending our educational work. The World Heritage Site will enable our children to recognise that here are the early foundations of our modern industrial world. We want them to learn that railways, road locomotives and gas lighting all started here. That they can be justly proud of their ancestry and cultural inheritance. That where they are growing up has meaning and significance for all humanity - places and peoples that should be cherished by all of us. That to be Cornish is to be truly international. |
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