BlueFish Regeneration specialises in community-led regeneration with a particular interest in coastal and rural areas.
One of my projects for 2012 is to investigate the impact of cultural-led regeneration on local communities and economies, primarily (but not exclusively) in coastal towns. It will be grassroots focused, aimed at getting a better understanding of what does and doesn’t work on the ground, as opposed to what in theory should work. I’ll also be assessing the impact, if any, of government cut backs and the so-called Big Society in this area.
If you have any thoughts, ideas, contacts, or case studies, please feel free to contribute to this blog as I need as much feedback as possible. I will share my findings later in the year and update this blog as I go along.
You may find the Creative Cities project of interest: http://creativecities.britishcouncil.org/
Also, I think I would look at the past European Capitals of Culture, eg. in the UK Glasgow and more recently Liverpool.
List of places you should check out (examples of success and failure):
Folkestone
West Bromwich (the Place)
Middlesborough/Middlehaven
Digbeth Birmingham
the Northern Core cities for whom culture has been a central strut of the regen strategies.
And of course a host of international examples led by Bilbao, Barcelona and Abu Dhabi etc.
I’d recommend you be clear how you define ‘culture led’ regeneration; is it the same as courting creative industries? There is much academic literature on the subject.
Just a quick brainstorm – I hope this is of some use, and I look forward to seeing your study.
Ivan
Thanks Jacob and Ivan for your comments.I will certainly follow them up.
Good point Ivan, about clarity: I am looking primarily at galleries, museums and festivals rather than creative industries, so the impact of new visitor / leisure experience rather than that of businesses setting up in an area. Though of course ideally the two are interrelated.
I agree with above comment on definition of culture – and who it is primarily aimed at.
You might want to think about visitor focused cultural led regeneration & its impact compared to cultural regeneration which is more focused on local residents and which of these might have greater impact longer term. For example projects which give people a pride of place can have longer lasting impact than those where a new asset comes and then perhaps doesn’t do too well.
Also, it is important to check that visitor appeal is actually turned into increased spend (either by existing visitors spending more or new visitors – not just in the venue but in the locale – and that this is sustained). Some of these great new galleries which have opened recently are attracting large numbers of visitors, but do they spend any money at the venue, in the town, in the overall areas?
Also, it is worth exploring relationship between cultural events and spend, not only just fixed asset regeneration. Uni of Nottingham business school did an interesting toolkit measuring the economic impact of cultural events which is worth looking at.
Suggested places worth exploring is Pavilion Gardens in Buxton – conversion of a 70s style cafe into a new TIC, retail and artists gallery outlet – which has increased footfall and spend massively.
I think Kirklees council have also done an assessment of their cultural regeneration spend which might be useful.
Looking at creative- driven regen also look at Margate – Turner Contemporary – as that has had a huge impact over the last couple of years building up to opening. This ties in with Helen’s comment about visitor led but this has also impacted with local residents due to large community driven programme.
Hastings is another coastal town using a creative driven regeneration.
Culture led regeneration will only be a success if the visitors drawn in have an economic and social impact on the wider area. Without that you don’t have regeneration just a business.
Having said that the nature of the impact is important. If a community, and Hastings would be a good example, is low income and dependent on public sector welfare services, then culture based regeneration will be largely irrelevant and may be damaging to that community. Replacing low cost shops with tea rooms and galleries while driving up house prices doesn’t tackle the issue that triggered the call for regeneration in the first place.
Large projects like the Lowry, Baltic in Gateshead, Turner in Margate will have some requirement for an asessment of impact attached to any grant.
You may also want to look at impacts from recreational and leisure projects and markets. I did a series of blog posts that addressed some of these issues. Rather than dig out the links from them I have linked to the posts below:
http://ibanda.blogs.com/panchromatica/2003/09/markets_fairs_a.html
http://www.withoutthestate.com/panchromatica/2003/09/economic_benefi.html
http://www.withoutthestate.com/panchromatica/2007/10/more-on-fairs-a.html
http://www.withoutthestate.com/panchromatica/2003/09/whay_some_towns.html
http://www.withoutthestate.com/panchromatica/2008/05/carnival.html
All really helpful comments and good points. Thank you. Ian, you have hit the nail on the head about the nature of the impact as that is exactly what I am interested in. It is not always easy to dig this out from official evaluation data.
Check out the case study of the Towner Gallery on our Website project http://www.beaconcultureandsport.org.uk. I also agree that Margate would provide an interesting case.
Jonathan
Ecorys
As a cultural regeneration programme it would be interesting to look back at the Sea Change projects and assess the impacts/outcomes.
I’ve just completed my Masters dissertation in similar and I’d be happy to share its thinking with you; outline of it is on my website and do email me to progress.
Cara