The Prince’s Regeneration Trust (PRT) is to become a subsidiary of the Prince’s Foundation for Building Community (PFBC) as of next month, it has been announced.
Both charities, which were founded by HRH The Prince of Wales, will come together with a “renewed focus on heritage and regeneration”.
PRT, which in 2015 had an income of £2.7m, will become a subsidiary of the Prince’s Foundation, alongside PFBC’s international arm INTBAU. PRT, which works in hard-hit areas of the UK to rescue and re-use local buildings to transform lives, will continue to deliver all its services, including its programme of advisory work on heritage projects and its BRICK community education programme.
In 2015, the Prince's Foundation had an income of £3.6m.
It was announced last month that Ros Kerslake, PRT’s chief executive, would be joining the Heritage Lottery Fund on 1 July as its chief executive. Her departure prompted the charities joining together, as it presented “a good opportunity to step back and assess how we could make the two charities in the PRT group most resilient and effective over the next 10 years”.
The executive director of The Prince’s Regeneration Trust, which will continue to trade under that brand, will be Rosie Fraser, who is formerly PRT’s operations director.
A spokeswoman said three redundancies are being made within the corporate support staff team of PRT, but said the project team at PRT and the management of United Kingdom Historic Building Preservation Trust are being strengthened.
The PRT team will move to be based at PFBC’s Shoreditch offices.
PRT’s own subsidiary charity, the United Kingdom Historic Building Preservation Trust, which owns Middleport Pottery and other sites, will operate as an independent charity. It will continue to be chaired by Stephen Musgrave and HRH The Prince of Wales will continue to be its patron.
Several PRT board members will continue to serve on the PRT board, although it has yet to be decided how many, and they will also be joined by some of the PFBC directors. The existing UKHBPT board (chaired by Stephen Musgrave) will continue as is, but in due course they will look to take on a couple of additional trustees.
Ian Marcus, chair of PRT, said “I am delighted that the two built environment charities founded by HRH The Prince of Wales have come together and as a result will be in an even stronger position to help communities across the UK to preserve and reuse important heritage buildings.”
David Brownlow, chairman of PFBC, said: “I am very pleased that The Prince’s Regeneration Trust is joining The Prince’s Foundation for Building Community.
“There has never been a more important time to devote resource and expertise to Britain’s heritage. The combined resources of these two organisations will offer an unprecedented level of knowledge and experience, to help protect, revitalize and learn from Britain’s built heritage. It will enable us to better deliver the vision of our shared founder.”
