Galle Fort as a managed heritage site, run with the residents

A first step

Knock on the doors of 20 households still living in Galle Fort and ask three questions: would they support a cap on tourist lets, a levy on visitors and a residents' body to run both. Write up the answers with the count for and against. A majority in favour, and a handful willing to sit on a committee, is the proof that residents can run it.

Who pays first

The resident households of the Fort, who would pay a small membership to a body that protects their homes from being bought out for holiday lets.

What leaves today

Heritage value now flows to outside owners of holiday lets while residents leave; a resident-run site keeps the income with the people who live there.

The idea and the mechanism are from the book. The first step was written for this site as a suggestion; if you know a better one, say so.

The test

Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?

The only test any idea on this site has to pass. The four rules that go with it are here.

In the book

• Ch. FiveThe Most Photographed Rock in the World
  Galle Fort, Venice and what heritage funnels do
• Ch. ThreeWhat We Have Already Built
  Geoffrey Bawa's tropical modernism and the Aman resorts

More from cluster 19

• 381A film-location service: crews, permits, fixers and locations, sold to the studios of India and Europe
• 382Documentary production about the island's own stories, sold to the streaming platforms
• 383A museum shop worthy of the museum, at the National Museum, at Anuradhapura, at Galle
• 384Digitisation of the palm-leaf manuscripts and colonial archives as a paid service to the libraries of the world
• 385Architecture tours of Bawa's buildings with the houses opened by their owners
• 386Heritage-building restoration firms with the skills to work on the forts and the villas

All 15 ideas in this cluster