Image: The strategy runs between 2013 and 2018

A new five-year investment strategy designed to help create a "stronger and more resilient" UK heritage economy has been launched by the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF).

HLF chair Dame Jenny Abramsky revealed plans to work with sector organisations and other partners in order to ensure heritage continues to play an important economic role.

The agency will invest £375m a year of National Lottery cash as part of a new framework between 2013 and 2018, with new funding streams and initiatives proposed.

During the five-year period, the HLF will look to encourage more philanthropic donations through endowments and stimulate local growth with a new Heritage Enterprise scheme.

A further round of the Skills for the Future initiative will help boost resilience and support for heritage in private ownership is to be extended through the Our Heritage scheme.

The maximum grants available to Landscape Partnerships are to increase from £2m to £3m, while Sharing Heritage will provide a new simple grant programme for smaller projects

Meanwhile, the HLF will now also require all bids for funding worth more than £2m to come with an assessment of the project's carbon footprint.

It comes after the agency's board of trustees deemed it important to consider the environmental impact of supported schemes as part of the grant decision-making process.

Dame Jenny said: "We believe that, as the biggest funder for the sector, we should respond to the changing world with flexibility.

"We want to ensure our heritage is supported effectively and imaginatively, contributing to the economy and helping it continue to flourish for generations to come."

Heritage minister John Penrose added: "The HLF have done great work over the last 18 years supporting heritage projects, and the new strategy aims to take this still further. I commend it to everyone."

Details: www.hlf.org.uk

Image: National Trust/Pete Nash