Professor Barry Gilbertson is to step down from his voluntary role as chair of the City of Bath UNESCO World Heritage Site Advisory Board and Enhancement Fund following his departure from the city due to family relocation.
The Advisory Board is a partnership panel overseeing Bath’s UNESCO inscriptions. The World Heritage Enhancement Fund, a partnership between Bath & North East Somerset Council, Bath Preservation Trust and the World Heritage Site Advisory Board, sources, funds and manages local cityscape improvement schemes. Professor Gilbertson, who has chaired the Board since 2017, settled in Bath in 2013, following a successful career which included acting as an external adviser to The Bank of England for 11 years. He joined the Bath Preservation Trust as a volunteer in 2014 and then served as a trustee as well as chairing its Historic Vaults Group from 2015-2017. He served as a governor on the University of Bath Council from 2014 to 2020 and as a Director of the Bath Royal Literary & Scientific Institution from 2020 to 2022. He was appointed Visiting Professor at the University of Northumbria and at The Royal Agricultural University and has been a Visiting Lecturer at 23 other universities around the world. Professor Gilbertson is also a Fellow of The Royal Society of Arts, and past President of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. In 2019, he was declared one of the 65 Greatest Chartered Surveyors of the past 150 years.
In Professor Gilbertson’s successful time at the City of Bath, the WHS has had 100 improvement projects funded, 70 incised stone street signs restored, its second WHS inscription in 2021 (now one of only 22 double-inscribed WHS) and the opening of its WHS Centre (71,000 visitors in opening year).
In 2018, Professor Gilbertson initiated and has since chaired six meetings for Chairs of the 33 UK World Heritage Sites to share best practice. World Heritage UK thanks him for his significant work, bringing the UK’s Chairs together over the past years and we wish him well for the future.
Picture: Professor Gilbertson (left) with Cllr Kevin Guy, Leader, B&NES Council