ABSTRACT
In the past, Britain’s towns and cities were shaped by the needs of industry; the need for water, transport, energy or raw materials determined where the large manufacturing enterprises would locate and this in turn determined where people would live. Given the fundamental shifts consequent upon the collapse of Britain’s traditional manufacturing economy, and the inheritance of vacant factories and industrial buildings, local communities with strong connections to these areas are now at a decisive point in their development. People are increasingly resistant to the proposition that they should move away from their communities to find a future in other parts of the country or indeed the world. Rather, local communities are pressing the government and agencies responsible for regeneration to explore the process of reinventing economies in these locations and —in consequence-to reinvent the communities where people already live. This inevitably means that there is a need to recognize the value of the investment that already exists both in the people and the built environment. Regeneration strategies in future will have to include an explicit recognition that much of the built environment, and especially heritage industrial buildings, represents a sustainable resource from past generations which is capable of being recycled for new uses and forms part of the current agenda of ‘sustainability’.
