Market failure in Northern Ireland’s heritage sector

Date published: 20 May 2025

New research has shown that 93% of listed building owners say that it is important or very important to maintain their listed building, yet a third of Northern Ireland’s listed buildings are lying vacant and 36% are in poor or very poor condition.

Publishing the research, Communities Minster Gordon Lyons said: 

“For the first time, this research gives us a detailed picture of the views of listed buildings and scheduled monument owners on the benefits they see, the barriers they face, and the interventions they think we might make, to ensure that our privately owned heritage is as well maintained as it can be.

“Our buildings and monuments are a public good, they do more than provide benefits to individual owners. They help all our society by attracting jobs and tourism, reflecting civic pride, improving our wellbeing, reinforcing our identity and by being a key resource to learn about our long and unique history.

“As a society we owe our gratitude to those who look after these structures, and as a department we will use this research to refine and develop the practical support and help which we can provide to owners.”

The research, in response to the Culture Arts and Heritage Taskforce report of 2021, is divided into four parts: a literature review; listed building and scheduled monument owner’s surveys, and an analysis of what the data can tell us.

The main results include:

• Owners who value their building or monument are likely to have a better maintained structure.
• Owners who receive higher private benefit from their heritage asset (i.e. value the asset for reasons in addition to its mere functional use), appear to carry out higher levels of maintenance.
• There is a strong negative relationship between condition and holding a view that there are disadvantages to owning a listed building or monument.
• When asked about obstacles preventing maintenance, 53% of scheduled monument owners said financial cost of maintenance.
• Out of those listed building owners who selected at least one obstacle, 67% of said the costs of suitable skilled contractors and/or materials.
• Another key obstacle was difficulty finding skilled contractors and/or sourcing suitable materials, (40% of LB respondents and 40% of monument owners who selected at least one obstacle).
• The most cited assistance to encourage outstanding repairs was funding/tax break, with 75% LB respondents and 70% of monument owners stating this.
• Availability of affordable materials, availability of skilled builders, availability of required materials as well availability of specialist advice and guidance were also cited.