Good morning from Stoke & the Cultural Development Fund Network looking at project legacy. A welcome from local Clr Jane Ashworth talking about the important role of culture in grounding us, inclusion, trust & countering troubling narratives. Culture should be a right for all. 
Some reflections from David Johnson of @ace_national: 1. CDF has demonstrated value of partnership & convening; 2. Rooted in local identity & place 3. Sustainability is key - delivery is the beginning.
23 Projects in this cohort
.@PotteriesMuseum - focus on linking the museum better into the urban realm & cultural quarter - contributing to its offer. Focus on quality of cafe, artist in residence to inspire ceramicists to create new inspiring work. Educational offer being improved. Collections access.
Medway’s Docking Station at Chatham Historic Dockyard. Focus on old Police Section House. Will create new tech & media/immersive spaces at heart of a creative hub. Big engagement piece - hosted artists in residence, work with community, bringing to life archives & history of site
Educational and school programme, young people focus including round the filming happening often at the site, festivals for families. Digital ecosystem for digital programming. Supporting community volunteers as part of the development of the site. kent.ac.uk/news/community…
First panel looking at leadership, ownership & ops. With Bradford Arts Centre, Urban Hax, North Devon Council & Morecambe Winter Gardens. Good points on bringing the team with you - clarity of purpose for all, engaging local academics. Developing right comms for all partners.
Partnerships with parts of community who have their own expertise & goals. Opportunity to restore & use historic buildings for community use. Wayfinding, public art - identity of the town & making sure plans reflect how people feel about their town, involving local FE college,
Partnerships can be harder to plan into the future - eg community use - will only work if all partners work together… council, practitioners, community
Morecambe Winter Gardens completely volunteer led - a challenge! 17000 hrs pa. Shift - getting community to believe the org could do it. Practical skilled board. In heritage world this is normal - funders need to understand this. Reporting takes more time than the work itself.
Difference between building ready and venue/business ready. Different partners have varied sense of what should be subsidised & how. Not all partners always on top of the business plan. Often need several versions - can also include one keeping lights on, another future facing…
The power of peer learning through CDF network has been critical - not in competition. There to support each other & learn.
Next lightening talk: Morecambe Winter Gardens - the ‘Albert Hall of the north’. Often buildings are saved before a plan for what you do with it is properly formed. 11 different grants. Local people behind this & believing in the building. Critical CDF includes capital & revenue.
Important for locals as tangible & intangible heritage. 70+ volunteers, 70,000 hrs per year. Giving Morecambe pride back in the place. A building of expectation, ‘to make a mill girl feel like a duchess’… brings people back & love home town again, could now be town of culture.
Second panel: Testing & Learning with N Devon Council, Docking Station, Potteries Museum & Art Gallery & Urban Hax. Study visits & camaraderie - learning from what others have faced & tackled. Various strands of money - needs to dovetail with other place investment & objectives
CDF was important because of its mix of capital & revenue. Supported engagement & buy in - a cultural offer for local people. Eg had Jeram’s moon in Barnstaple - drew people in while projects still underway.
Revenue brings people, events & life into the buildings. Allows connections with creatives to be made. Push project forward with community.
Afternoon kicking off with a couple more lightning talks - Barnstaple. Heritage Open Days mentioned as one of successful activities happening when project began - to be embraced. Worked with local businesses - support for basic skills, public art as well as capital project.
Heritage Trail, nature trail. Creation of public art as part of the funding - eg welcome mosaic involving community with council support.
Next up @UrbnHax in Walsall. Creative Industries as part of the priority of the council. Learning from others to create a makers space in the Guild Hall. And learning from other CPF projects… Will be multi-disciplinary creative. Part of challenge - how to fit this all together.
Making sure there is continuity & legacy - Makers Fest, support for skills for creatives so they can build viable businesses. Considering what you are doing and why. Who is the audience, how does it fit with regional ecosystem?
Panel 3 - Launching not Landing with Bradford Arts Centre, The Docking Station, MakerFest & Fringe Festival Walsall & Urban Fabric.
Bradford: Building community & important commercial and corporate offer. Looking after staff through & behind peaks of delivery activity. Often capital projects sit on one person’s shoulders - key to support them through the pressure. Key to have work stream to manage transition.
Need to be able to launch without hard transition - thinking through roles, succession, can’t plan soon enough for transition to operation.
Hard where a council doesn’t have a cultural or events team (no glue for partners there) - so extra work to look at who is operating & being collaborative to draw partners in. How do you engage the makers so they take up space in future building & engage? Community focus.
Creating a brand with the accompanying events & festivals. Welcome us important & where artists & communities can see themselves on the walls that helps with welcome & sense of ownership. Buildings themselves - thresholds matter, look for opportunities in every building.
People draw other people, situation of cafe as a draw. Removing impediments for access. Thinking about how a treatment of historic building will play out into the future. Listen to all those who can share learning.
Many projects have to have a blended model balancing community & commercial interests as part of sustainable business model. Have to think through aims, values around community but also commercial driver for future of building/VAT/zoning & timing. Blended model does cause anxiety
Getting this model right is key. Getting timings work through the day, feel of space, good coffee are all key beyond the bricks & mortar. Days of a cultural venue that only delivers culture are gone. Not a competition - getting the mix right.
Staffing costs are higher than they have free been (as well as utilities) - hard to develop a viable staffing model. That’s why it is key to get the income sustainability model right.
Bradford initially they had nobody to pick up the phone to in order to learn from others about delivery of a cultural capital project. Networks & peer learning critical. Tips: start early, realistic programmes, testing time, buildings are not the beginning, remember aims.
Next quick talk - Bradford Arts Centre - practical challenges to fix in making an older building accessible & functional for new audiences. Fixing the basics like the roof. Redevelopment not just about fixing the building - creating a home for creativity & future generations.
While the capital works were underway - team were out building relationships with the community, built local hubs, every programme rooted in community voices - groups did things differently. First time many had stepped through the doors. People recognising selves in building.
Last panel - culture as a catalyst with ACE, Bradford City of Culture, Lancaster City Council, Stoke Creates & Medway Council.
Moving from project to place. Stoke: “Sticky” culture. Young people have a lot of talent - may leave to study but do they come back? Trying to retain talent & bring it back. You can build a creative career here… able to activate this as part of place partnership award.
Medway - brought people together for city of culture bid, & then create creative strategy. Brought momentum - Docking Station got its own wings through levelling up & high street funding. Confidence & investment, half to now 7 NPOs. Driven by community - now a heritage place.
Tackling legacy of loss of dockyard & ripples of deprivation through creativity, culture & heritage.
Bradford: city of culture finished but really the beginning. Locals are owning the label as ”ours” - now a legacy programme announced.
Morecambe - really high deprivation. Deep & complex. Decline years eroded people’s pride. Fires in important buildings wiping them out. 90s called most depressed town in England. Dragged spirit of town down - process now of rebuilding. Perception & pride through incremental gains
Winter Gardens - an incredible venue. Celebrated through build also with narrative. Through podcasts about what volunteers did & histories. Helps build the pride.
Key - that young people don’t all leave to work elsewhere - even for Medway. Creating orgs & businesses from incubators, with good quality jobs in the area. Let legacy of the investment. Developers are building into that now. Connections to the university.
Stoke - able to demonstrate high skilled sector with skills around engagement here. Need to strengthen workforce to deliver. Revenue around capital is key. Building climate of trust for ambition. UNESCO world heritage bid in the future. Securing assets for the future - long term
City of Culture - now running 3rd household survey. Capturing local views - 8/10 have said it made a difference to their lives. Feel better, healthier. Pride is key - city launched regeneration plan. New station for direct services. Culture driven. 20 Young apprentices training.
Morecambe - project not yet finished but already seeing outcomes from the intervention. Holding tourists overnight. Aligning tourism/amenities/cultural offer. Opportunities raised.
Chatham - can struggle with civic pride. Long lasting change has to be people feeling proud about where they come from. Hull’s journey as example… put onto these places by external forces but can deflate places. Good jobs, health, culture - supporting those working in regen.
Also seeing embracing of inventive public art in Bradford. Stoke - centenary - People’s Parade as inspiration for new cultural strategy. Bradford - international dimension is critical - using British Council support brought artists in but also sent internationally.
Creating new routes, working with airlines, Bradford a welcoming city - important to make places a destination. Important city of culture was done with not to Bradford. International element for a City of Council is vital.
Keep the door open for partnerships. Bring others in later - not a sense of ‘done now’ door closed. Build on those who want to work with you & others may catch up.
Everything is about the people, young people, partnerships, confidence, stories, believe to achieve & take people with you. Culture works best when connected in an area. Measuring of impact needs to match programme. Story starts long before & carries on far after the project.
At the end of the conference we were treated to a tour of the immediate area around the Spode & Minton works. It’s notable how tiles & the potteries are showcased everywhere.
Stoke is actually 6 towns. The clay used in the potteries is in the geology all around & though it has Saxon roots, it was the potters moving into the marshland, using the local raw materials (& later importing clay from elsewhere) that led to a huge industry here.
The Spode & Minton works. There has been some high street action zone investment in the area, some successful, some less so. The British Ceramics Biennial is also based here.
We were treated to a look at a working tile factory which produces glazed & encaustic tiles.
Tiles made here in the past have been used across the world including in NYC. These powder pressing machines, often powered by women, put tonnes of weight to form tiles - 3 a minute. These are then glazed or become encaustic tiles. You can see these showcased on Stoke’s buildings
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