Last night we were treated to live jazz and a spirited debate on the role of the creative industries in placemaking for the Annual Osborn Memorial Event. Guests joined us at Covent Garden’s St Paul’s Church, with music from young musicians who are being supported by music development charity, Tomorrow’s Warriors.
Thangam Debbonaire, former Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, kicked off the evening’s discussion by asking the audience to take a closer look at their surroundings. Informally known as the ‘actor’s church’, the walls of St. Paul’s feature images of legendary performers through the ages, from Vivien Leigh to Charlie Chaplin. The building sits in the heart of Covent Garden – a bustling cultural quarter known for its buskers and street performers as well as institutions like the Royal Opera House. We didn’t need to look far to find evidence of how the creative industries can make a place.
Creative development
However, the creative industries are about more than just performance venues. ‘We need to think about production, not just consumption’ noted Emma Wilcox, a creative placemaking and strategy consultant. Thangam agreed and emphasised the vital role that spaces like schools and youth clubs play in nurturing creativity and providing a stepping stone into careers in the cultural sector.
The creative and cultural industries generate an estimated £100 billion per year to the UK economy. ‘That figure comes from the heart, imagination and spirit of artists’, explained Errol Michael Henry, Chairman of the i2 Music Group, EMH Global Media Global Consulting. He urged people to look beyond solely economic benefits and to recognise the creative industries’ wider value to individuals and communities, ‘Arts and culture encourage people to have a voice and a point of view. They bring life, joy, and spirit: everything you can’t buy with money’.
‘Make no little plans’
Emma explained that good placemaking requires ‘scale, ambition, courage, and long-term vision’. She pointed to the ‘audacious development’ in Stratford’s East Bank, a new cultural quarter in east London, which is one of the UK’s largest investments in culture. Thangam noted how investing in large ‘world-class’ cultural venues can help to boost a place’s cultural ecosystem, using the example of the Bristol Beacon music venue.
But being ambitious isn’t just about creating large-scale developments. It also means trialling new approaches and supporting innovation. Mary-Helen Young, Senior consultant at PRD, listed Camden Council’s Evening and night-time strategy and Greenwich Council’s reimagining of public spaces to drive community cohesion as good examples.
Drawing on their work on regeneration projects, Mary-Helen and Emma emphasised the importance of co-creation and collaboration. In Ebbsfleet – the country’s newest garden city – a participatory process has helped to feed in a broad range of views from local people and ensure that the new development meets the needs of the whole community.
Panellists also discussed how ‘meanwhile space’ can be a valuable tool for making room for culture. The term refers to disused sites that are temporarily leased or loaned to organisations such as community groups, arts organisations, and charities. Emma explained how in Nantes, former industrial buildings were taking on new life as co-working spaces and creative studios.
However, Errol cautioned that meanwhile space will not always be suitable for creative functions and shouldn’t be used in place of purposeful investment in cultural spaces. He warned that culture must not be an afterthought when planning new developments, ‘you can’t build a place, and then say: let’s add some music’.
A changing landscape
Mary-Helen spoke about the challenges for the cultural sector brought about by a changing economic context, including rising land values and rents, increased construction and energy costs, and the wider cost of living crisis. She also commented on the changing face of the country’s town centres and high streets which are currently facing ‘an identity crisis’. She explained how new ways of supporting and sustaining the creative sector are emerging, such as Margate Creative Land Trust.
Emma noted the ‘plummeting investment’ in arts and culture, which had seen the switch ‘from cool Britannia to austerity Britain’. Yet, the creative industries’ social and economic value is well documented. She asked the panel to turn the question on its head: ‘Don’t ask what the creative industries can do for placemaking, ask what place-makers will do for the creative industries’.
This event was kindly supported by the Lady Margaret Paterson Osborn Trust and Stephanie Bamford.
TCPA resources on culture and planning
- National Cultural Planning Toolkit
- Putting art back into planning – a practical guide for councils
- Civic Art: the renewed philosophy of town planning – a TCPA arts and planning provocation paper
- Webinar Recording: New Communities Group Webinar on Planning for Culture
- Guide 6: I’d Love to Live There! Planning for Culture and the Arts
- Beyond beauty: the case for co-creation and Civic Art by Katy Lock
