The Alliance to Reduce Crime against Heritage (ARCH) is a new voluntary national network which will take forward initiatives to tackle heritage crime and galvanise local action as part of the Heritage Crime Initiative. The overriding objective of the group is to reduce the amount of crime that causes damage to or interferes with the enjoyment of heritage assets in England.
Members of ARCH have a shared interest in preventing and seeing effective enforcement of heritage crime and through conferences and training events it will be a means of discussing priorities, sharing information about heritage crime, carrying out training and highlighting best practice and making local contacts.
A conference for ARCH members will be held annually where experiences, ideas and priorities for tackling heritage crime can be shared.
The first conference organised by the Alliance to Reduce Crime against Heritage (ARCH) was held in London on 11 February 2011. Here representatives from a wide range of organisations came together to discuss the problem of heritage crime, learn more about the Heritage Crime Initiative and how they could tackle heritage crime in their areas by developing a partnership model.
The conference was attended by Baroness Kay Andrews, Chair of English Heritage, Chief Constable Richard Crompton of Lincolnshire Police and lead for Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) on matters relating to Rural Issues and Wildlife and Heritage Crime and Nick Hunt, Director of Strategy and Policy Directorate for the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS).
English Heritage together with ACPO and the CPS signed the Heritage Crime Memorandum of Understanding at the opening of the conference.
Councillor John Gilbey, Heritage Champion & Leader of Canterbury City Council, the first local authority signatory to the Memorandum of Understanding, spoke at the conference, as did Councillor Dr Andrew Richardson Heritage Champion for Dover District Council and Kent Police Heritage Crime Volunteer.
There was widespread media coverage of the event and an extremely enthusiastic response both before and after the event highlighting just how much interest there is in tackling this problem.
Both the conference pack and the Powerpoint presentation can be downloaded from the right hand side of this page.
Membership of the Group is free and open to all organisations and groups that have an interest in preventing and enforcing heritage crime.
If you are interested in finding out more about the Heritage Crime Initiative, or becoming a member of ARCH please contact English Heritage's Customer Services Department.
Email: customers@english-heritage.org.uk
The ARCH Newsletter was launched at the end of October. This can be downloaded from the 'related documents' column on the right.
