Creative Places: Gateshead Culture Strategy

The future is bright but there is no doubt that the present is difficult. The council's overall funding settlement is thinly stretched between its statutory obligations, and many cultural organisations are already doing so much with very little. However, there are new opportunities for investment from NEMSA, an opportunity to leverage more funding into local communities, and there is the opportunity to leverage cultural organisations and creative industries in supporting the growth of the economy and improving health and wellbeing.

In a time of financial pressures, it's crucial that investment in attracting events, organisations, government and regional investment, and interest in Gateshead, benefits the whole of Gateshead.

Our mission is that culture should be available everywhere across Gateshead.

Our vision is that Gateshead is a significant creative and cultural hub in the North East of England where culture is born, grown, and reinterpreted for the good of our economy, communities and residents.

Our strategy is built around four key pillars:

1. Civic, community and grassroots leadership: Culture happens everywhere across Gateshead. It is in libraries, community halls, the high street, the countryside, and on bridges. It is the thread across the borough that binds people together. The driving forces behind the creation and delivery of the strategy are our large cultural organisations, grass roots community groups and freelancers whose collective strength is leadership of place.
2. Identity: Gateshead has a strong identity of place as a borough made up of urban and rural communities who identify strongly with their neighbourhoods. This sense of identity creates significant opportunities for pride in place and a celebration of cultural assets strengthening community cohesion.
3. Economy: The culture and creative industries are one of Gateshead's strongest economic sectors, accounting for approximately 15% of all enterprises and generating an estimated £318m in direct and indirect impact for the local economy. Culture and creative industries have a key role in creating jobs, attracting visitors, and opening up new opportunities for residents across Gateshead.
4. Health and wellbeing: Culture contributes significantly to the health and wellbeing of our residents. The benefits of connecting people through culture are multiple. Culture activities support healthier lives, reduce loneliness, and allow people to express themselves through creativity.

Pillar 1: Civic, Community and Grass roots leadership

Funding: Funding is the single largest challenge that many local cultural organisations and creative industries face. It is the barrier that prevents them from doing the things they would like to do and the thing that prevents infrastructure bodies doing all that they would wish to. Funding alone does not solve every problem, but it does allow organisations to do more brilliant things.

The funding challenges operate on three distinct levels. There are the visibility problems associated with funding. This is the awareness of what funding is available, the criteria in which it can be applied for, and the awareness of the great work that is going on in Gateshead for external funders. There is the problem of how funding geographies overlap with Gateshead working between regional and national funding. There is the capacity problem of supporting organisations to build internal resources to attract new funds.

Our work will therefore work on all three levels at once. Our plan is ambitious but organisations in Gateshead deserve that level of ambition:

• Streamlining: We will make more visible the pots of funding that communities can apply for through a single communication outlet. This will be curated and widely shared so organisations do not miss out on funding they could otherwise apply for. Should any discretionary council funding arise criteria will be made visible, winners will be celebrated, and the outcomes will be evaluated to support greater use of funding in the future.
• Attracting new funds: We will work with Gateshead's cultural and creative leadership to continually make the case for creative investment in Gateshead. Through engagement with community groups, cultural organisations, businesses, and partners, we will develop a series of fundable propositions across national and regional priorities in skills, the visitor economy, and culture led regeneration. We will also work in partnership in driving the case for further culture investment in the region including in the maintenance of our nationally leading assets.
• Capacity building: We will work with our external partners to provide support for business development and fundraising. Through leveraging community expertise, support from our partners, and making the most of existing expertise, we will provide masterclasses, business advice, and fundraising guides.
• Internal positioning: In order to embed culture across the borough we will continually look at how culture can be integrated into emerging plans in regeneration, investment, health, and skills. This will foreground the diversity of our communities and be attuned to their needs.

Pillar 2: Identity

Gateshead is locally excellent and internationally known. To us, there is no distinction between being community led and being world-class. Our work deserves to be celebrated, and our communities should be front and centre of all that we do.

• Gateshead 2028: In 2028 we will launch a borough wide festival of culture to celebrate the 30th birthday of the Angel of the North. The Borough of Culture initiative will be a year-long celebration of events, displays, music, theatre, crafts, volunteering, and community engagement. It will be the year we shine a light on everything we do.
• Communication: We will revisit our communication strategy to place more emphasis on showcasing work going across the borough. We will investigate whether our approach to place-based marketing is making the most of our cultural landscape, we will share the success of our creatives, and advertise our broad national and local events offer, to ensure we are celebrating Gateshead's distinctive offer.
• Inclusive, community led events: Supporting community led events, engaging groups across the generations, will continue to be a core part of Gateshead Council's work. We will ensure we are building inclusive approaches to sharing work, engaging with the broadest range of Gateshead's citizens and letting others know about its impact. We will enhance our approach to evaluation to help make the regional and national case for further support.

Recognition: We are proud of our creative industries. We can attract global musicians, international events, and world-famous sports, and we want to ensure this not only puts Gateshead on the maps but lights up our wider place.

• Place activation: The benefits of the events in Gateshead should be widely felt. Learning lessons from the likes of Taylor Town in Liverpool which generated commission for local artists, additional tourist visits, and attention on the place, Gateshead will bring together its key partners around large events to help bring a spirit of celebration and ensure the benefits are widely felt.
• The Gateshead Mirror: Gateshead benefits from global arts and performance and local talent. As part of the integration of culture in our place we will work with partners to commission public art that reflects and reinterprets new exhibitions in Gateshead. This will support artists, drive interest, and support the careers of new and emerging local artists.
• Investment: We will work with businesses in Gateshead to drive investment into the creative industries. Building on the density of businesses in the Quayside and town centre we will support the continual development of inward investment prospectuses using Gateshead's land assets, clusters of businesses, and access to talent, to drive further investment.

Pillar 3 : Economy

The data gathered as part of this project demonstrates that Gateshead's creative economy is robust, it is growing faster than many parts of the North East, and around 15 per cent of all enterprises in Gateshead are based in the creative industries.

The benefits of a thriving creative industries are manifold. They attract people to a region, they create jobs, and the crowd in agglomerate economic benefits through tourism, employment, and business creation. Through econometric analysis as part of this programme we estimate that creative industries create around £318m of direct and indirect benefits to the local economy. This does not include all of the enormous savings to the public sector through wellbeing and community services.

Gateshead's economy has a number of large cultural organisations and a number of smaller grassroots organisations. This strategy aims to ensure the largest organisations succeed so their benefits can be widely felt while boosting the work of smaller organisations - working together through place leadership. At the same time, our goal is to cluster in new businesses and funding.

• Creative industries and Culture Partnership: Gateshead Council will work in partnership with cultural practitioners, creative industries, businesses, land a cross-section of community organisations to deliver this strategy. A portion of their work will be working together to find opportunity to share skills, bring in investment, and develop shared programmes of work across the borough.
• Regeneration: There are significant numbers of empty spaces in Gateshead. Aligning with the existing Asset Management strategy Gateshead Council will work to signpost to appropriate spaces, redevelop spaces for communal and cultural use where appropriate.
• Events and place: Gateshead will continue to prioritise the attraction of events and heritage assets as a key driver of economic activity. The creation of cultural growth events and borough-wide activations will drive visitors, create opportunities for freelancers, and engage the local residents. We will work with businesses in key areas across the borough to run an events programme and placemaking campaigns. This will be focussed on driving footfall through music, food, dance, crafts and events events. Collectively, Gateshead will also promote its cultural assets through a place-based-marketing programme that shows its relationships to its partners in the North East.
• Ambition: "The place where you can do anything.": This was a quote from a student who found Gateshead as the home for their art. It was a freedom to express, to try, and to work with others. We want to scaffold their success and grow more artists in the borough. This means continuing with our high-class community work out of libraries and it means the support for community groups referenced throughout this strategy. It also means actively seeking regional investment for new models of skills programmes that support our cultural organisations to support the success of artists through experiential learning and community work. It means that we will actively seek out organisations to come to the borough and bring new employment and engagement opportunities with them. And it means continuing with tailored support where working with our businesses, education partners, and civic leaders, we will provide support for organisations to start-up, scale up, and grow through business advice, networking, and mentoring.

Pillar 4: Health and Wellbeing

Cultural and creative organisations play a key role in the health and wellbeing of the people of Gateshead. They are a key tool for bringing people together inclusively, they improve the mental wellbeing, and they are a key point for communities to connect.

Our ambition is for culture to be widely available because its benefits are enormous. In order to achieve this we will:

• Prioritise art and artists: We will leverage regeneration funding to support public art and wayfinding. This will encourage more people to explore more of Gateshead, help regenerate areas of the borough, and support local artists.
• Investment propositions: Gateshead will collect more data and insight into community led events. These will then be collated thematically into a single database to allow greater sharing and cases for funding. This will help to support the sustainability of the existing wellbeing benefits of culture in the borough.
• Sports - Gateshead Council will continue to work with local sports clubs, sports businesses, and owners of assets, to promote Gateshead as a destination for sports.
• Cultural pop-ups: Gateshead Council will support local arts organisations and artists to display their work across the borough. These kind of pop-up interventions may be one-offs or occur as part of programmed events like food-markets as means of ensuring the wellbeing benefits of culture are widely felt.
• Partnership working: In line with best practice from the Arts Council we will work with partners across the health system to develop interventions in health and wellbeing. We will seek strategic support and funding with likes of the NHS, National Lottery, and social prescribing organisations.