Post written by: Erin Walcon
Top summary:
Last week, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) published their new Place Strategy, alongside a renewed list of Priority Places for Culture. This was immediately followed by Arts Council England releasing their interim Strategic Framework. (This framework will be used to determine investment decisions until a new strategy is developed to replace Let’s Create and will likely be the guidance used to shape the upcoming NPO application process.) It’s worth a look – the new strategy is a quick read – it’s much simpler than Let’s Create.
For ACE, this is action taken in response to the 2025 Hodge Review. For anyone who hasn’t had a look at the Hodge Review, or the government’s response, or ACE’s response, you can do so via these links.
Okay, that was a lot of dense summary – well done for reading this far. Here’s why it matters.
What it means for us here:
For those of us living, working in Torbay, this announcement and list issued DCMS is really big news. Scroll down to ‘T’ in the list of Priority Places, and you’ll see why.
For the last five years, Torbay has been classed by government a ‘Levelling Up’ region – i.e. due to our endemic poverty statistics and double deprivation quantitative data as well as low cultural participation survey data. However, in a baffling move, Torbay was not classed as an ACE Priority Place in 2022. The reasons for this omission were somewhat opaque – apparently due to a low rating by ACE on the ‘opportunities matrix’: the methodology and data of which was not transparently shared. This has resulted in an ongoing five year challenge which has impacted regional investment as well as morale and a squashed sense of hope locally. It’s one we’re glad to have behind us. It’s good to be looking forward.
This new round of Priority Places adds a further 23 new regions to the previous list of 58… this takes the number of Priority Places nationally up to a new total of 81. Alongside the list, DCMS have published a detailed breakdown of the methodology which was undertaken to determine these areas. For anyone who is a hyper-nerd like me, this makes for really interesting reading. I find it really helpful to have this decision explained in detail, with clear data and a rationale provided.
The So What:
What does this actually mean though, you ask? Well, for us here in Torbay, it means we’re now officially being seen as being an urgent priority area for arts investment. (This is welcome news, especially when combined with the fact that National Lottery Heritage Fund have also identified Torbay as a key area for investment via the Heritage Places scheme.) Look at the DCMS methodology above and you’ll get a clear sense about why Torbay is on this list.
And for us locals, we know it’s true – our statistical picture is grim, there’s no denying it. We are face-to-face with it every day. Children growing up here are facing very real barriers – in terms of access, opportunity, aspiration, and poverty. Local partners are working in a climate of skeletal infrastructure, constant exhausting scarceity and precarity, and let’s be honest, many are fighting a dwindling sense of hope that things can change.
But things ARE changing here. And powerfully so. There’s a quiet, gradual, growing, significant shift happening in Torbay. How do I know? Here’s how… in the past two years, I’ve found myself in conversations and rooms where partners are working together in new exciting ways, and it’s moving into a regular pattern and a serious shift in effectiveness. I am finding a new sense of growing possibility in these conversations. Something is changing.
From the regular gatherings of the Torbay Arts in Schools Network (TASN), through to the rich dialogue of the Imagine This Partnership and their Powered by Youth model, through to the emerging leadership and vision of the Torbay Creative Cluster (just starting to launch!), I can feel a powerful step-change is about to occur here.
The vison:
A Torbay where EVERY SINGLE CHILD can access the arts, can dream big, can aspire and shape their own future.
A Torbay where the arts entitlement gap is closing rapidly.
A Torbay with ambition, with vision, with a joined-up coherent approach – achieved through effective partnership working, led from within the region by grassroots homegrown leadership.
A Torbay which is internationally recognised in exceptional best practice in participatory engagement.
A Torbay that believes in itself, and believes a better future is possible for its children, and is prepared to action that vision.
Exceptional Torbay partners are fighting daily for this vision in the region… and when we continue to link arms together and work in effective partnership, serious change is possible here.
What’s Next?
More updates to come soon on the emerging launch of the Torbay Creative Cluster – this is going to be an exciting space for locally-rooted Torbay leadership to vision forward ambitiously. The website launch is pending and there will then be an open call-out, welcoming local leaders to be nominated to serve on this group… you’ll need to be able to evidence that you can fairly and responsibly represent a Creative Industries subsector’s voices and perspectives. This is going to be a key space where we can strategically dream, work across traditional divides, and develop a joined-up ambitious vision for Torbay.
More updates to come about the next iteration of Powered by Youth (coming in Sept 26)! The Imagine This partners are building on the success of the 2025 activity, and there are some very exciting plans in the works for June-Sept 2026.
More updates to come about TASN’s groundbreaking pilot partnership work in supporting creative arts field trips, in-school arts outreach, and Arts-piration in the bay. Across this Summer Term, there are 5 artist micro-commissions taking place and 7 creative arts field trips occurring – the TASN partnership are pushing forward significant chance in the ways that schools and arts organisations work together. We can’t wait to dream bigger and better for next year, building on this year’s pilot success.
There’s a lot in motion at the moment… big thanks to those local partners who have tirelessly shown up in so many hard-working spaces, meetings and rooms to make this shift happen. This isn’t an overnight fix, or a snap-your-fingers kind of magic. This is a slow hard aerobic burn – hour after hour, day after day, email after phone call. But we ARE getting somewhere. It’s a very quiet revolution, but one I’m feeling really proud to be a small part of.