Written by Caggy Kerlogue – Creative Assets and Place Manager 

Creative Estuary’s local authority place partners from around the Thames Estuary joined us in discovering cultural placeshaping in Ipswich, the day was organised by Creative Estuary’s Creative Assets and Place Manager. 

Key messages of the day centred around the idea of community and collaboration, in addition to the important focus on the heritage of buildings and how you engage with them.  

The day started at Dance East, a purpose-built dance house, accommodating the infrastructure needs of the dance industry and its cultural production. Lucy Bayliss, Head of Creative Programmes, explained the origins of the organisation, and demonstrated how its programmes support communities to engage in dance as not only audiences but participants too. The organisation saw 5,000 children and young people, and 61,000 attendees at classes and events last year and delivers programmes across the Suffolk region in community venues. 

Jayne Knight, Head of Culture at Suffolk County Council, gave an introduction to cross regional cultural developments. Jayne described Ipswich as the county’s “cultural heartbeat, a place where people come together, and things can grow.” In 2012, the Norfolk and Suffolk Culture Board was formed and established the culture sector’s shared ambition for the UK’s mostly easterly regions. Recently, they have had a focus on creative health and place partnership, with the Mapping Creative Health in Norfolk and Suffolk allowing them to strategically collaborate on cultural initiatives that will improve people’s health and wellbeing.  Suffolk is currently working to embed culture into the regeneration of Lowestoft, utilising cultural placemaking practices. 

Lee Walker, CEO of Ipswich Central (BID) and LOCUS Management Solutions​, gave the group a tour of the cultural development in Ipswich’s town centre. Lee demonstrated the important role BID’s can play in cultural placemaking including improving the aesthetics of a town centre, through public art, green space development and public space activation. Alongside more strategic and structural development, leveraging funds for targeted programmes and supporting creative businesses to thrive.  

Along the tour, the group saw a disused church transformed into an arts and heritage centre, street art covering disused buildings and explored businesses in The Saints, a community of independent businesses in the historic heart of Ipswich. We had the opportunity to hear directly from Loveone, a homeware and gifts store that stocks work from local artisans. The group learnt how the independent community has grown and the role of BID in enabling businesses to not just come to Ipswich but be able to stay. 

To finish the day, the group was given a tour by Joe Bailey, Director of Sounds East CIC, Out Loud Music and Brighten the Corners​. Joe Bailey, a cultural social entrepreneur, showed the group multiple buildings that have been reimagined for cultural heritage. We visited all three of the venues Joe and his team now manage across the Town: St Stephens, The Baths and the Smokehouse, all of which were empty heritage sites (a church, a swimming pool and a kipper smokehouse) when they were acquired. What started as a 70-capacity venue and youth attainment programme in one of the most deprived corners of the town has grown into a local ecosystem. One that supports young people to develop careers in the music industry and provides much needed cultural provision for local audiences.  

Like many towns across the UK, Ipswich has no mid-scale music venue infrastructure, Sounds East CIC are working to change their meanwhile use of the Baths into a permanent venue which would change this. Brighten the Corners now delivers an annual festival, the 2024 event supported 76 artists across 6 venues, reaching audiences of over 9,000, 45% attended free events and 46% travelled from outside of Suffolk. It is estimated the festival brought in an additional £275,000 in spending to the locality and many of the paid roles involved in the delivery of events were young people who had come through Out Loud Music’s programmes.  

The group discussed and explored the challenges that had been highlighted throughout the day, particularly relevant for our work in the Estuary: How can we and our partners spend more effort on a home-grown approach and a self-starter economy? How might that approach empower and inspire local people versus the bringing in of cultural providers? How can we work strategically as place partners, to add value to the role local authorities play, in opening up the potential for cultural growth on a local level? 

There’s great commonality between Ipswich and our locations across the Estuary. It was an excellent place to learn about the potential of our plans across South Essex and North Kent as its cultural placemaking is further developed.  

The cultural development of buildings, with a focus on the heritage of what these places once were was evident in Ipswich. The development of the University of Kent’s Docking Station is a great example of this mindset being applied in Medway, with the derelict Police Section House being transformed into a centre of creative digital production, education and community engagement. 

High Streets are playing a leading role in our thinking, with the challenges the retail sector has faced since the pandemic causing a decline in occupancy and use. Seeing the empowerment of local and independent businesses such as those in The Saints, with local ecosystems, networks and offerings for communities, gave insights into our current work in the Estuary. In Sheerness we’re bringing together local creative partners to explore the possibilities and ability to occupy empty retail spaces. In Gravesend we’ve been supporting new strategies for St Georges Shopping Centre, including the St George’s Tech Hub and meanwhile use by creatives building on the success of St Georges Arts Centre. 

There’s growing knowledge around the challenges the live music industry has been facing, with the May 2024 House of Commons Committee; Grassroots Music Venues report, which acknowledged that the UK is losing grassroots music venues at a rate of 2 per week. Finding positive solutions that can support local government and cultural partners to support the development, delivery and sustainability can have far reaching economic impacts through employment and the rising trends in music tourism. The work of Sounds East CIC in Ipswich demonstrated the power of creating local ecosystems, by supporting education programmes with professional pathways that can increase both the economic and social value of a locality. With Kent and Essex having substantial music hub programmes that support the educational aims of the music industry there is a real opportunity to harness the live music sector through small and mid-scale venues in the Estuary, increasing the provision of live music and the local economies through employment and secondary spending. 

Dance East demonstrated the importance of having publicly funded organisations that are housed within purpose-built venues, allowing them to embed themselves within communities, whilst also championing the local cultural sector on a national scale and being destinations for audiences. Creative Estuary has seen the number of Arts Council England National Portfolio Organisations double in our areas since 2022 and we continue to support the infrastructure development of the sector, ensuring there are the right buildings and resources in place for organisations like the new NPO’s to grow.  

Alongside this asset development work, our co-commission fund with its bespoke support packages allows us to invest on the ground in organisations and freelance practitioners who provide direct benefit and value to our local communities, these starting blocks enable the environment for local organisations to grow, scale up their practice and develop sustainable business models. With the hope that many will reach the scale of Dance East which celebrated its 40th anniversary as a company in 2023 and has been in its building for the past 14 years. 

It was a great visit to Ipswich, and we were warmly welcomed by the town. It really demonstrated the potential of our work in the Thames Estuary, gave insights into new approaches and reaffirmed that projects already underway are on the right track to meet the needs of the creative and cultural industries and local communities in North Kent and South Essex. 

Caggy Kerlogue is an experienced Producer whose worked across art forms, with a strong understanding of the needs of the CCIs sector and communities; she has considerable experience of the property sector including creative production spaces. Caggy joined the team in March 2024 and leads on the Knowledge Exchange Partnership aspect of Creative Estuary.  

The Knowledge Exchange Partnership brings together 6 authorities designated as Levelling Up for Culture priority places in the Estuary, which are: Thurrock, Castle Point and Basildon in Essex, and Medway, Swale, Gravesham in Kent, along with the Ebbsfleet Development Corporation. We are working together to find the right pathways to ensure sustained and locally relevant growth of the creative and cultural industries in their areas.