The Scottish Stone Liaison Group \'Joined up Thinking\' seminar in Stirling last month (November) attracted 100 delegates from local authorities, architects\' practices, contractors and conservation bodies.

The seminar was to discuss the value of Scotland\'s built heritage and was addressed by a range of speakers covering issues that often cut across professional and skill boundaries.

The seminar was held in the Chambers of Stirling Council and was opened by its Provost, Councillor Colin O\'Brien.

Susan Dickie, of VisitScotland, underlined the value, in terms of employment and income, of Scotland\'s built heritage. She said tourism, which Scottish local authorities spend £13.2million marketing, supports 215,800 jobs and 20,000 businesses turning over £4.5billion a year. And what many visitors (83% of those from overseas and 39% from within the UK) came to see was churches, museums and castles.

Ingval Maxwell, a director of Historic Scotland, spoke about the issues being addressed by Historic Scotland and was followed by Ewan Hyslop of the British Geological Survey, who focused on the damage being caused to Scotland\'s heritage from the use of inappropriate replacement stones in repairs.

Andrew McMillan, also from the Geological Survey, highlighted the fact that while Mineral Maps were available for England, there was no such resource available to local government planning departments in Scotland.

Tim Yates from the Building Research Establishment (BRE) addressed sustainability and life cycle costing and was followed by Dennis Urquhart who advised the meeting of the progress being made on the \'Glasgow Project\'.

This Scottish Stone Liaison Group project seeks to identify the masonry skill and material needs required for Glasgow over the next 25 years. It will report in the coming summer.

Murdo MacLeod, Principal Conservation Officer of Edinburgh City Council explained how the council dealt with material falls from buildings.

The seminar was chaired by Alan McKinney, chief executive of the Scottish Stone Liaison Group.