Good practice:

Landscape as an asset in a DIY revitalization of a heritage site.

The Renaissance Castle of Heers is a crossroad of European influences: a show wing (18th century) with well preserved stucco by Swiss artists Moretti and Gaggini. A courtyard with Italian loggia, an English landscape park, a classic French interior, a neo-Gothic gatehouse with chinoiseries. However, twenty years of neglect now threaten the castle, particularly the leaking roof which is causing serious damage and endangering structural stability. Neither the owners nor the authorities currently have the capacity to restore or take responsibility for Heers.
In response, a group of engaged volunteers has created the ngo 'Heerlijk(heid) Heers' and they have been fighting since 2017 to rescue the castle. Because the majority of the buildings are in a decaying condition and dangerous to enter, the volunteers have focused on the landscape around the castle, which acts as a backdrop. The park has been cleared and made accessible. Small scale (temporary) interventions and events interacting with the surrounding landscape are used to explore the potential of the site and increase awareness. Activities have created media attention and slowly developed an interested community surrounding the castle. 100 Volunteers are now connected to the site. They organize events and maintain the park. More than 10,000 people have visited the castle and local and regional authorities support the ngo in their fight to safeguard it. It is a unique bottom-up approach with a focus on the landscape.

The volunteer group makes the park accessible, organizes events and aims to increase public awareness . This requires a yearly budget of 50,000 to 75,000€ which is raised from different sources (funding, events). It is significantly less than the funds that would be required to restore the castle.

The ngo created a wide interest in the site over the course of 3 years. They did this without a starting budget. Making the park accesible was the only possibility to start public activities. Since the start, 10,000 visitors have visited the site.
As a result, in October 2020, the regional government decided to invest in the site. Local authorities also came on board to help maintain the broader landscape surrounding the site. Private foundations like the Fondation Roi Baudouin stepped in too.

The interventions and activities didn’t aim to raise the necessary funds for the restoration but instead sought to build awareness and increase expertise in exploiting the site’s potential. The aim is to attract external funding and as such the success partly depends on external decisions.

Restoring larger heritage sites is challenging and the cost can be overwhelming. This group of volunteers started without a plan and without funding, but with passion and enthusiasm. The core of their strategy became the public activities they made possible on the site. This created a community and the necessary awareness to mobilize governmental institutions, eventually leading to cooperation between experts, , SMEs, local and regional authorities.

The landscaped park, with the castle as backdrop, became the largest asset as the buildings remained too dangerous to enter. Approaching the landscape as the main space was a necessity but proved very valuable. Costs are limited, flexibility is large and it is manageable for a small group of volunteers.

The determination of the volunteers at Heers castle can be an example for both community initiatives and public authorities around Europe of how to start saving the stories of heritage sites before restoration funding can be secured.