Features

VIDEO: With the five Cultural Development Fund (CDF) first round projects now complete, funders DCMS and Arts Council England opened the CDF symposium, Re-Imagining Place, with introductions to the fund and the first round projects from Lord Parkinson (DCMS) and Paul Bristow (ACE)

The Cultural Development Fund (CDF) Symposium, Re-Imagining Place: Sustainable and Inclusive Growth Through Culture, took place at the Guildhall Worcester in March 2023, marking the culmination of the five first round Cultural Development Fund (CDF) projects and offering opportunities to celebrate, share learning, connect and be inspired by those projects in Grimsby, Plymouth, Thames Estuary, Wakefield and Worcester. 

Martha's Story: the journey of a creative apprentice, from warehouse manager to assistant producer for Worcester Arches Festivals

Prior to the DCMS announcement of the second round of investments through the Cultural Development Fund, (CDF), the CDF Network presented case studies through the first round CDF projects at Creative UK's Creative Coalition Festival 2022.

During this session at Creative UK's Creative Coalition Festival 2022, our expert panel discussed the role of culture in engineering the levelling-up agenda.The Levelling Up White Paper, published on 2nd February 2022, included 107 references to how culture can support the levelling up agenda, with a promise that DCMS will further set out its plan to deliver to this agenda in the spring.

So, it's here at last ... the Government's long-delayed white paper for levelling-up. We already know that investment through culture and heritage has a...

“Forgotten” heritage sites and cultural organisations recognised for role played in ‘Levelling Up’ local towns and cities Cultural regeneration projects at disused heritage sites across...

Although conceived years before the phrase became a central part of government policy, the achieved outcomes of Pioneering Places provide evidence of what Levelling Up might look like in practice, with the right focus, partners and ambition. With all four of the project locations based in local authorities identified as priority one areas in the Levelling Up Prospectus, and specific sites such as the Folkestone gasworks and Ramsgate’s East Cliff in the top 10% most deprived wards in the country, there is a clear need to find new, innovative and creative ways to address the issues of our left-behind towns and smaller cities. 

Partnerships with schools and young people were particularly significant in demonstrating the greatest impact. Across the four Pioneering Places projects and the wider advocacy...

Cultural and heritage-led placemaking Pioneering Places is the largest of the national Great Place Schemes, an ambitious project that will make East Kent an even...