This idea helped build the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge. Could it save NSW heritage?

The Sydney Opera House and the Harbour Bridge wouldn’t exist today except for popular public lotteries that sold millions of tickets to support their construction.

Now experts say a lottery like the UK Heritage Fund, which has raised $19 billion over the past 30 years, could save NSW’s heritage before it is too late.

The fund provides grants of $20,000 to $20 million to projects ranging from oral histories to castles and outdoor pools.

Bathers at Brighton’s Saltdean Lido in East Sussex, which was restored with funding from the Heritage Lottery. Credit: Getty Images

Thanks to the British public, a $10 million payout supported the restoration of Brighton’s art deco Saltdean Lido to its previous grandeur. The outdoor pool was built in the same era and style as the North Sydney Pool and Newcastle Baths.

Asked whether she supports the idea of a UK-style heritage lottery, NSW Heritage Minister Penny Sharpe replied: “We are open to any idea that could help raise funding for our state’s heritage.”

Sharpe said the government was committed to better supporting communities to protect, commemorate and enhance heritage for the next generations.

The NSW draft heritage strategy released in mid-May – open for public feedback until early July – said more funding for conservation and enforcement had been a top concern in consultations. It coincided with coverage of the decline in Katoomba of famous art deco properties, including its old cinema, the Paragon Cafe and Mount St Mary’s College and Convent.

The revival of the old Bega Hospital, which won a National Trust heritage award this year. It now has become a hub for 40 community groups. Credit: National Trust Heritage Awards 2025

Former premier Bob Carr, now chair of the Australian Heritage Council and the Museums of History NSW, said it was worth interrogating how the UK heritage lottery worked, though criticism was inevitable. As a form of gambling, a heritage lottery was “a relatively benign one, compared with poker machines and casinos”.

To David Burdon, head of conservation at the National Trust in NSW, applying for a heritage grant was already like entering the lottery, but one with “such a limited allocation and such an oversubscription”.

Architect Matt Devine, a lecturer in heritage at the University of Sydney and the chair of the National Trust Heritage Awards, supports a lottery, saying competition for heritage grants is fierce.

A lottery would provide an alternative funding source to cash-strapped heritage projects.

To conserve a project, it takes a private owner with a big bank account, or a handout or grant under a range of federal, state and local government programs.

In 2021-23, Heritage NSW grants of $5.8 million funded 224 projects, and from 2023 to 2025, $6.4 million supported 152 projects. The 2025-27 round of funding rose 33 per cent to $8.5 million. Successful applicants will be announced soon.

The increased budget has not kept up with costs, inflation, and a spike in demand after the pandemic.

It also falls short of the cost of conserving and adapting significant projects for community use and housing. Two newly finished heritage projects in Sydney cost more than $10 million each.

Heritage NSW’s grants are mostly $25,000. But in this round and last, it included for the first time a $1 million payment to a high-level NSW project where the recipient must match funding dollar for dollar.

North Sydney Mayor Zoe Baker said reviving the lottery was a good idea at a time “where heritage is being overlooked and overridden in NSW”.

It would not have prevented the blowout in cost and time affecting the North Sydney pool, which she attributed to a failure in planning before the project.

But it could fund new harbour pools where old netted swimming spots once existed, such as at Lavender Bay.

“State governments are dealing with constrained budgets and struggling to deal with years of neglect and maintenance of assets, and councils like mine are also struggling. To have a source of funding, to promote and protect heritage buildings and places would be a really great thing because it would serve to activate public spaces.”

Burdon said the key to the UK’s lottery’s success was that funds had been spread fairly and widely.

Conservation benefits the wider community. After a $6 million revitalisation of the Old Bega Hospital, winner of this year’s National Trust Heritage award, the institution is used by 40 community organisations.

Heritage expert Kate Clark worked with the UK Heritage Lottery for seven years. It was “brilliant” because it funded heritage without competing with other good causes. And it did not support private individuals, or give money to projects getting other support.

“They fund anything – landscapes, buildings, collections, biodiversity and also industrial and transport heritage – buses, boats, trains, aviation. And in Australia, transport heritage is one of the most popular forms of heritage.”

There was no reason why NSW or Australia had to be “so stingy” about heritage. “The problem is that [governments] see it as a regulatory problem, not a policy opportunity.”

In NSW, lotteries are operated by the Tatts Group.

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