CDF Network Study Visit explores Rochdale’s place-based vision
Rochdale’s new Culture and Placemaking Team has a robust framework in place which underpins its approach to placemaking, cultural development and community engagement across the district, supported and catalysed through the Cultural Development Fund (CDF).
Part of Rochdale Development Agency (RDA), the team is focused on delivering a new enabling and facilitating service across 5 key functions:
- Placemaking
- Cultural Development
- Visitor Economy
- Festivals
- Town Centres
The CDF Network has played its part in helping to shape the thinking behind Rochdale’s place-based approach, which includes the trial of hyperlocal ‘Place-based Visions’. Oliver Boaler, Placemaking Manager says:
“I was inspired by the CDF Network Study Visit to Torbay, thinking of different town identities across a wider district, borough or local authority and how they can all work together through a clearly defined place-based strategy with culture at its core”.
Although focused on the creative industries and cultural sectors, Oliver also took inspiration from his RDA and Local Authority colleagues, particularly those in public health, who had been working in a much more place-based way. Oliver explains:
“This approach revolves around engaging with highways teams, planners and other stakeholders to help enhance understanding of place in different contexts and to develop a cohesive vision to help drive and coordinate both capital and revenue interventions.”
This summary report captures learning from the CFD Network Study Visit to Rochdale, which may similarly inspire others involved in developing creative and cultural placemaking programmes.
Learning Outcomes
The Rochdale Study Visit was a wide-ranging and in-depth programme. Insights include key areas and activities spanning both the capital and revenue funded programme, including:
- Connecting capital projects to wider regional development initiatives
- Developing a Creative Improvement District (CID) – framed as a ‘Cultural District’
- Heritage-led regeneration
- Developing a cultural compact based on a socio-cratic model
- Empowering communities to help inform and shape the design process
- Mapping, supporting and developing the local creative sector
- Fostering positive relationships between communities across the district
- Deep, rich engagement and empowerment of Children and Young People (CYP)
About the project
Key elements of the project and surrounding programme include:
- Capital and revenue programme funded through £4.2m Culture Development Fund (CDF) investment
- Capital redevelopment of Touchstones into a multi-disciplinary cultural hub – Rochdale’s premier arts and heritage venue and Arts Council England National Portfolio Organisation (NPO), housed in a Grade II listed building
- Rochdale Creates Space programme to create and promote spaces for creativity, including through bringing vacant buildings back into use
- Public realm improvements and activations around the stunning Rochdale Town Hall
- £600k revenue programme – Rochdale Creates – to support borough-wide creative and culture projects, develop capacity and leadership in the sector and connect local talent to business and development opportunities
Place Partnership
Key partners involved in the project include:
- Rochdale Borough Council (lead partner)
- Rochdale Development Agency (RDA)
- YourTrust Rochdale
- Rochdale’s Cultural Compact and its five working circles, which includes key corporate, cultural and community stakeholders
The Challenge
Like all of Arts Council England’s Priority Places, Rochdale has historically had low levels of engagement and Arts Council England investment in culture. The borough also faces significant challenges with regards to both civic and cultural engagement and the wider socio-economic landscape. These include:
- Underdeveloped infrastructure – particularly cultural infrastructure
- Poor perceptions of place
- A range of levels of connectivity, with some areas well served by train, tram and bus, whilst others are much more disconnected
- Relatively low land values
- Underdeveloped capacity in the sector
- Large area, with different identifies across Rochdale, Middleton, Heywood and the Pennines
- Lack of consistent audience and sector data
Context
Rochdale’s creative and cultural placemaking and regeneration programme connects with Greater Manchester’s Mayoral Development Zone, Atom Valley. This vast, ambitious project will cover 1.6m sq metres of employment space, creating 20,000 jobs and 7,000 new homes to provide a £300m boost for Rochdale and its neighbouring areas of Bury and Oldham.
Rochdale’s Head of Culture and Placemaking, Pete Courtie, is clear about the scale of the opportunity and the role that the CDF programme and Rochdale’s prioritisation of the creative and cultural sector can play in this:
“This can turn around the fortunes of those who live in the area”, says Pete. “Enhancing and improving the local cultural infrastructure and its offer and developing and supporting the growth of the creative and cultural sector will play a key role in the success of Atom Valley. Businesses looking to relocate to the area will want to ensure that employees and their families have access to a varied and life enhancing cultural offer and like our residents feel a sense of pride in place, that Rochdale is a great place to live, work, play and visit.”
Capital Project: Touchstones
The grade II listed Touchstones venue is currently undergoing a significant redevelopment as the cornerstone of Rochdale’s CDF capital programme and a key anchor in its Creative Improvement District. Already established as a much-loved arts venue with 42,000 visitors per year – and one of Arts Council England’s new NPOs as of 2023 – the redevelopment will significantly upgrade and enhance Touchstone’s offer and Rochdale’s existing cultural infrastructure. Key features of the redeveloped site, set to open in 2025, include:
- Opening up the ground floor to become a much more dynamic series of spaces that can accommodate a more varied and multi-disciplinary offer, including:
- New flexible performance and production space
- Improved areas for training, live events and exhibitions
- Education spaces including dedicated space for Pinc College, specialising in supporting neuro-divergent young people
- Communal creative workspace to support the sector and education programmes including a digital co-working space, podcast recording studio, and a messy studio including ceramics workshop and kiln
- Innovative Dining Room concept, combining the theme of food with the borough’s collections, co-created alongside Rochdale’s diverse communities
- Improvements to the building’s accessibility and sustainability
- Renovation of first floor gallery spaces, (funded outside of CDF)
Touchstones is led by YourTrust Rochdale, one of three new NPOs for Rochdale announced by Arts Council England in 2023. Mark Doyle, Head of Arts, Engagement and Heritage, immediately saw the opportunity for the CDF investment to help radically imagine the space, while staying true to the organisation’s track record of co-creation and working closely with communities.
“We knew from the start we didn’t want to do this ourselves as a team, we wanted to work closely with the community,” Mark says.
“This can be challenging when dealing with architects and planners who need to know what the project is very early on, but we found a way through. Our designers, Architectural Emporium, have been brilliant. They really bought into what we are trying to achieve.”
Oliver Boaler agrees, “Despite all the pressures of running a major capital programme, we knew we had to make sure all the planning, the contractor’s tender etc had in-built flexibility to make space for community engagement to be taking place in tandem with capital development and in a way that could inform the design process.”
Recent years have seen this become increasingly challenging, with inflationary pressures only adding to the impetus to ‘get cracking’.
“Capital project leads need to always be mindful of the viability gap,” Oliver explains. “The cost of land and construction now – or at the design phase of a project – can escalate rapidly and render projects undeliverable or unaffordable if they are delayed too long. Building close connections and engagement with communities on an ongoing basis can help ensure that when the funding comes on-stream and the opportunity arises, projects can move quickly without leaving communities behind. A particular focus for our engagement going forward is providing new opportunities for young people to have a say in the future of their town, giving them a genuine stake in the development of their hometown.”
Co-Creation and Community Curation
YourTrust Rochdale and Touchstone’s approach to co-curation and community-led design is exemplified by its vision for The Dining Room.
“We’ve done a few projects previously with artists looking at food and seen how powerful this can be for bringing people and communities together and sharing and exploring ideas.” says Mark. “Food brings people together, makes memories, and expresses love and care … no matter where the recipe comes from. So we knew early on The Dining Room was going to be a key factor.”
Running alongside the capital development of The Dining Room space, the National Lottery Heritage Fund has committed £250,000 to help create a space where food, socialising, art and heritage combine. This will include an evolving collections display, food-related art installations, a new textile commission inspired by Rochdale’s industrial history and even opportunities to connect with the ceramics work taking place in the new “messy” studio.
Community co-creation is fundamental to the project, with Touchstones recruiting 20 paid Community Curators through different community partners, including Awakening Minds, Theatre in Flow, the Association of Ukrainians Great Britain: Rochdale Branch and Rochdale Boroughwide Housing – the UK’s first tenant and employee co-owned mutual housing society. A further ten young people from Rochdale Youth Service invited to join in as Young Curators.
Touchstones approach to co-curation is already well-established through previous work including its Free-for-All exhibition that set out to “give galleries to the people.” This community-led approach will continue to be a core part of future delivery at Touchstones.
Sustainability: Past, Present and Future
Sustainability will be built into the storytelling in The Dining Room, including re-using husks and coffee grounds, recycling materials and working with local suppliers on sustainable food options. “Sustainability is already driving a lot of the decision making”, says Mark.
While we often think only of the challenges of retrofitting Victorian buildings, Oliver Boaler is keen to point out the opportunities that can be unearthed if you know where to look.
“We often forget that Victorians were pioneers in sustainable architecture,” says Oliver. “It’s been really exciting to have uncovered the original vents that had originally been installed to mediate the temperature of the gallery spaces in Touchstones. This historic system, coupled with modern technology will form the basis of a new sustainable ventilation strategy that will reduce operational carbon and running costs”.
Creative Improvement District
CDF investment has helped support Rochdale to put into practice some of the approaches to creative and culture-led regeneration set out in the Greater Manchester Combined Authority vision for Creative Improvement Districts.
Key to this is the refurbishment and repositioning of unused spaces – often in or around town centres and high streets – and developing these spaces for use by the fast-growing creative and digital sector.
One such space is Richard Street Studios, developed in partnership by RDA and Rochdale Borough Council and let by lead tenant and local creative organisations, Breaking Barriers. Funded through a combination of Rochdale Council, RDA, ERDF, UK Shared Prosperity Fund and Historic England’s Heritage Action Zone, Oliver is keen to stress the importance of a partnership approach to such spaces:
“It’s not about the council running lots of buildings. It’s about the council saying: ‘we’ve got these empty buildings, we can apply for funding to help develop them, but we want to work with local people to help run them. The legacy of this is that it puts power in the hands of local creative organisations and communities to help shape what happens in those buildings”.
Rochdale Creates Space
Rochdale Creates Space is an initiative designed to help develop and promote spaces for creativity across the borough. This includes the recently opened Richard Street Studios, with a number of future projects in development including the redevelopment of a former retail unit and upper floors which is currently out as an open call to engage with potential creative tenants. Critically, the programme also includes the promotion of all spaces for creativity within the borough, which will be facilitated by the new ‘Rochdale Creates’ website. Organisations / operators will be able to register as partners and their spaces will form part of a public online directory of creative spaces.
Supporting a sustainable sector
In addition to the physical spaces, Rochdale is engaged on a wide range of skills and programmes, supported by CDF and GMCA’s UKSPF programme in partnership with a wide range of local partners. This includes:
- Tailored support in response to creative industry survey and sector engagement
- Workspace bursary programmes
- An online directory of creatives and organisations within the borough, to promote local talent and encourage investment in the sectorCreative apprenticeships and mid-career placements
- Fundraising training
- 1-1 Arts Council England advice sessions
- Business advice
- 2x Annual creative industries surveys
Support to help creative businesses to grow is a vital element. Annika describes this as a “shift in focus to help support investment in organisations delivering demonstrable social value, helping to support them to build capacity and skills”.
Revenue Project: Cultural Compact
Rochdale’s Cultural Compact sits a broad umbrella to support and activate the capital cultural infrastructure development. Broadly speaking, it consists of three core elements:
- Boroughwide creative and cultural projects and activities
- Rochdale Creates Space: supporting the Creative Improvement District
- Activation and engagement activities at Touchstones Cultural Hub
Right from the start, the Rochdale team has been keen to develop its Cultural Compact in line with a sociocratic model and Rochdale’s proud history as birthplace of the co-operative movement. This model involves close partnership with creative and community groups working through a series of interconnected, action-focused ‘circles’ or groups, each focused on a different ‘mission’: Community, Mission, Inspire, Pioneer, Connect, Activate Market Development and an overarching Leaders Circle.
The sociocratic model involves open access and opportunities for anyone to join each of the circles and also a need to establish unanimous consensus from each group on any key decisions and actions. Crucially, freelancers and non-regularly funded organisations are paid for their contributions and engagement to help remove barriers to participation.
Principal Culture Officer, Annika Edge – leading on the CDF revenue programme – explains that “Circles are groups of people who are doing things. There’s not necessarily any one person who can make something happen, it’s how they can all come together working along similar lines and objectives and be more than the sum of their parts.”
Spotlight on Children and Young People (CYP)
Rochdale’s Cultural Education Partnership has been supported with paid staff and dedicated resource, now branded as Create Rochdale. The ambition is to further develop the organisation to act in a similar way to the former Arts Council England Bridge Organisations, but working in a hyper-local way.
Activities delivered and planned through Rochdale’s CDF programme have included a Linking Schools project, bringing together children from different schools and different communities, sharing what they have in common and celebrating what’s different.
Other activities delivered or planned through Rochdale Creates include:
- Development of a Young Producer’s Programme to involve youth voice in cultural commissioning
- Creativity in Careers programme delivered through Positive Steps
- Saturday Arts Clubs, supporting CYP who often struggle to attend school and allowing them to engage in a positive way
- Skills share programme, partnering youth workers who have limited experience of arts-based work with artists keen to develop their practice with CYP
- Developing and promoting Teenage Markets
- Young Reviewer Programme
Spirit of Co-operation
Given its strong history and tradition as the birthplace of the cooperative movement and founder of the Rochdale Principles, it should come as no surprise that a confident belief in partnership, openness and collaboration was strongly evident throughout the study visit. This is fundamental to Rochdale’s creative and cultural strategy, its Cultural Compact and – as we have witnessed in other areas across the country – it will be crucial to the success of its CDF programme.
Further information
Rochdale’s creative and cultural offer – including both its capital and revenue CDF programme – is coalescing around a new brand and online presence, Rochdale Creates, with a new website launching imminently. For more information and to keep up-to-date, visit https://www.rochdalecreates.co.uk/
