In London’s newest development and regeneration scheme, The Thames Gateway, will the area’s 10,000 creative industries flourish or flounder and what of the future role for culture and the arts over the next decade? How do the creative industries truly bring wealth and social prosperity to an area?
This year’s Creative Links expo:04, (Atlantis Gallery, Brick Lane, London, Friday 16th-Saturday 17th July) was previously held in 2000 and 2002; and this year they welcomed 1000 visitors. In addition to showcasing the talent and diversity of over 40 of the region’s artistes, this year’s expo focused on the ‘Thames Gateway Region’. They did this through seminars and workshops on the regeneration plans for the area – including the Olympic bid, and providing information on investment and business opportunities available for the creative industries in the coming years.
Amongst the 80 exhibitors offering advice and networking opportunities for visitors, were: The Theatre Royal, Stratford East; East London Dance; London Fashion Forum and The Arts Council of England. Also attending were Oona King, MP for Bow and Bethnal Green and the principal partners and funding bodies who included: The Cultural Industries Development Agency (CIDA), The Thames Gateway London Partnership (TGLP) and the London Development Agency (LDA), which is accountable to London Mayor Ken Livingstone.
The Government sees London as the lynchpin of the British economy, hence the development and regeneration of the Thames Gateway is viewed as vital in supporting London’s growing population. The region encompasses 40 miles on each side of the Thames from East London to the North Sea. It also includes some of the most neglected and run-down of the East London boroughs. Within the next decade it is proposed that a whole new, sustainable community of 200,000 new homes and over 300,000 new jobs will have been created.
But what of the 10,000 creative and cultural industries in this area? Culture, we are told, is at the heart of the government’s regeneration policies. And this is where the Creative Links expo:04 comes in.
One of the many seminars enjoyed at the expo:04 event was Developing Your Creative Business. It showed how the Thames Gateway project will affect, and can be affected by, creative industries. Cultural regeneration (and for ‘culture’ please read all aspects of creative industries, arts, music etc.) is believed to bring extensive social and economic benefits to a community. It has been a key aspect of other national regeneration schemes – Gateshead, Glasgow, Hoxton, St. Ives etc. Thames Gateway is the most ambitious and potentially it could be the best if it is able to ensure that the benefits of cultural regeneration are sustained into the long term.
It must be remembered that any regeneration is principally intended to re-boot underachieving areas and in so doing, to improve the quality of life for people who are socially disadvantaged or excluded. It is not simply to benefit a middle-class minority. Meaningful consultation of the existing residents is vital in order to ensure that regeneration is relevant to and supported by the local community; this must be done from the planning stages. Hoxton is often cited as an example of how creative industries contributed to the regeneration of the area with great success but that the area became so ‘gentrified’ that the artists could no longer afford to live there.
Stratford East will be a key part of the Thames Gateway developments and one of its long-term artistic residents, Benjamin Zephaniah has remarked of the planned developments, “If you look at the Docklands area, none of the really local people have benefited. I hope that business people will invest properly in the people who live here’.
Many people involved in ‘the arts’ feel they face an on-going struggle to justify their existence and their receipt of any public funding. It has always been difficult to quantify the positive contribution that, seemingly non profit-making cultural activities, make to a community. Any claims made in favour of ‘culture’ and ‘the arts’ are rarely focused on the economic benefits. They are more often touchy-feely assets, frequently anecdotal, including:
Emerging evidence, noted in a recent Government Consultation Document: Culture at the Heart of Regeneration, has brought attention to the extent of the much underestimated, economic contribution to a community of its artists and creative industries. The document observes that economic benefits are achieved through employment opportunities, increased usage of local amenities and by generating revenue. In run-down areas it can affect the community in major ways –if an area has a thriving, high quality of cultural provision, people are attracted there as residents and to establish retail businesses. Graduated can be encouraged to remain in the area, which can be vital to the sustaining success of regeneration projects and, in time, land and property prices can increase.
So far, so good, but it should be stressed that at the moment, these are largely unsubstantiated claims. According to The Contribution of Culture to Regeneration in the UK: A Review of Evidence hard evidence, such as it exists, is usually confined to visitor and job numbers only. Wider evidence is only emerging; and much more is needed. There are, it says, limitations with the existing evidence due to inconsistencies in the evaluation methods and in some cases, resistance by creative practitioners, who see evaluation as an unnecessary intrusion into their creative process.
In addition, meaningful evaluation can be costly. Investors have been reluctant to fund it and it would stretch the already limited resources of many arts organisations. Creative practitioners must make full use of such a resource as the Creative Links expo:04 to educate themselves about issues like evaluation – no matter how intrusive this feels. Expo:04 can help to equip the creative industries in the area with the resources, professional development and support networks needed to ensure that they flourish. In the end it is not enough for culture to be a major part of social regeneration, but that it is relevant to the wider public who will then understand and appreciate the value of its contribution, for it is they who will ensure the sustained success of regeneration in the Thames Gateway Region.
With thanks to Mhora Samuel of CIDA. The www.creativelinks.co.link will remain an active site for the next 12 months. Currently it is specific to London and the South East. Funding options are being sought to make the event annual and to repeat the highly valued workshop programme.
