Heritage Grant funding supports owners, kaitiaki, communities and groups to protect, promote and celebrate the unique stories and places that are our taonga.

Christchurch and Banks Peninsula have a rich and diverse heritage which is a significant part of our identity. The places, memories and stories of all our cultures are treasures to be shared, celebrated and passed on to future generations. Valuing and connecting with our taonga provides individual and community benefits and is a foundation for a vibrant, dynamic and sustainable 21st-century city. 

Heritage provides our communities with connections to place, culture, identity and to one another. In addition, heritage delivers economic benefits, educational, recreational and tourism opportunities, and contributes to sustainability. 

Our heritage is tangible and intangible, built and natural and comprises places, objects, stories, memories and traditions. Tangible and intangible aspects usually co-exist in heritage places and items, and are interwoven.

We have an opportunity to preserve and share the places, stories and memories which are our taonga.

Heritage grant schemes provide financial support to contribute to the protection of the district’s heritage now, and for future generations. 

Heritage Incentive Grants

Heritage Incentive Grant funding aims to incentivise owners and kaitiaki to undertake works to protect, maintain, repair and upgrade heritage buildings, places, structures and objects.

Heritage owners and kaitiaki have a responsibility to care for places of significance to the wider community.  This grant scheme is intended to assist them, and to incentivise financial investment in heritage.

Heritage Incentive Grants support physical conservation works to heritage buildings, places, structures and objects. These grants achieve positive heritage outcomes by incentivising the appropriate and timely practice of Kaitiakitanga and the conservation, maintenance and retention or enhancement of heritage fabric and values.

Heritage values includes archaeological, architectural, cultural, social, spiritual, wāhi tapu, wāhi taonga, landscape, monumental, scientific, and technological values.

Eligibility

Heritage Incentive Grant funding is available to owners and kaitiaki of heritage buildings, places, structures, objects, and significant moveable heritage. These include:

  • Heritage buildings, places, structures, or objects which are scheduled in the Christchurch District Plan.
  • Heritage buildings, places and structures or objects which are listed by Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga.
  • Non-scheduled heritage buildings, places, structures, or objects which meet the current Christchurch District Plan or equivalent criteria and threshold for significance including places of heritage significance identified by the community. Examples include, but are not limited to: public, community, commercial, spiritual and domestic buildings; memorials, bridges and gravestones.
  • Significant moveable heritage.
  • Places of identified significance to iwi and mana whenua, including built heritage, moveable heritage, traditional places, wāhi tapu, wāhi taonga, ngā tūtohu whenua (cultural landscapes). Examples include, but are not limited to, pouwhenua memorials and flagpoles, marae shelters for tangata whenua or manuhiri, waka shelters, ūrupa and the conservation of tukutuku, kōwhaiwhai, whāriki and whakairo.

Intangible Heritage Grants

Intangible Heritage Grant funding aims to support communities, groups and individuals to protect, promote and celebrate their unique stories and taonga.

This is a new Heritage Grant scheme.

Intangible Heritage includes knowledge, stories, histories, memories, traditions, waiata, oral histories, trails and past landscape features.

It also includes past events, their associated sites and the people connected to them; hidden archaeology; wāhi tapu; wāhi taonga; ingoa wāhi; music; kapa haka; dance and language.  

Intangible Heritage includes the meanings and associations of a place, including historical, social, cultural, spiritual and commemorative values.

Intangible Heritage Grants support communities, groups and individuals to practise the principles of Kaitiakitanga and Manaakitanga and to share their own stories and histories.

This grant scheme aims to encourage Whanaungatanga, by supporting projects which respect, value and develop our connections to each other.

Intangible Heritage Grants achieve positive heritage outcomes by weaving together, strengthening and providing for all aspects of heritage and taonga tuku iho in Christchurch and on Banks Peninsula.

Eligibility

Intangible heritage grant funding is available to support communities, groups and individuals with projects that:

  • Encourage whanaungatanga and celebrate heritage as a taonga that respects, values and develops our connections to each other.
  • Raise awareness of the value of tangible and intangible heritage as a vital component of the unique identity of the district.
  • Are inclusive of the diversity of Christchurch and Banks Peninsula’s cultural heritage, including Ngāi Tahu and other iwi, European, Pasifika and people of all ethnic and cultural backgrounds.
  • Support the creation of ongoing, accessible heritage resources.
  • Recognise stories, people, customs, language, festivals, past events, commemorations, and cultural landscapes as taonga which our communities wish to pass on to future generations.
  • Identify, research and document new or untold heritage stories.
  • Engage a wide audience and provide a range of accessible opportunities to people of all ages and abilities.
  • Focus on themes of Christchurch and Banks Peninsula’s diverse history.
  • Support cultural wellbeing and other wellbeing outcomes.

Christchurch Heritage Festival Community Grants

This small grant scheme supports Community Event Providers to align with the vision and mission of the annual Christchurch Heritage Festival and to implement the 'Our Heritage, Our Taonga - Heritage Strategy 2019-2029'.

The Fund supports the delivery of Christchurch Heritage Festival Events and assists Community Event Providers to achieve the objectives of the Christchurch Heritage Festival:

  • To celebrate heritage as a taonga that connects our communities.
  • To raise awareness of the value of tangible and intangible heritage as a vital component of the unique identity of the district.
  • To be inclusive of the diversity of Christchurch and Banks Peninsula’s cultural heritage, including Ngāi Tahu and other iwi, European, Pasifika and people of all ethnic and cultural backgrounds.
  • To engage a wide audience and provide a range of accessible opportunities to people of all ages and abilities.
  • To focus on themes of Christchurch and Banks Peninsula’s diverse history and celebrate and acknowledge historic anniversaries and cultural commemorations.
  • To promote community heritage events and projects as part of the Christchurch Heritage Festival.
  • To support the creation of ongoing, accessible heritage resources.

The fund opens in May each year when the application process for the Christchurch Heritage Festival opens.

Applying for a grant

Past recipients

Here are some of the projects that have received Council heritage grants.