Overview

Overview

• London Borough of Culture presents a huge opportunity for Croydon. A once in a generation opportunity to platform Croydon’s world class artists and celebrate our unique cultural identity. Borough of Culture is our opportunity to amplify and embed that investment to ensure a sustained impact from 2023 and beyond.
• Our programme – This is Croydon, will empower our residents to shape and influence this change through culture. It is a grassroots and organic response to what is great here in Croydon, an authentic way to retain and grow our distinct identity.
• With the impact of COVID our call for system change is even more important due to the increased structural inequalities have been increased during the pandemic. The London Borough of Culture (LBoC) programme is a vital tool for the recovery of the cultural and creative sector and has been re-focused on grassroots activity that address inequalities and supports sector resilience and development.
• From the beginning we envisaged the London Borough of Culture being owned by our communities and cultural sector on a grassroots level. We are exploring options for the delivery framework for LBoC which will delivered in partnership with local cultural sector
• Croydon and the GLA are working together to make Borough of Culture the best opportunity it can be for Croydon. This includes exploring a range of different delivery options. We will be working with the culture sector in Croydon to produce a fantastic year of Culture.
• A steering group of 30 representatives from the Culture Network will be established in January to finalise the delivery plan. The local delivery partners will all be represented and nominations for the remaining places will open after the 15 November meeting. Care will be taken to ensure the steering group is representative of Croydon and includes a significant number of young people.
• Over 50% of the target budget is already pledged or committed from a range of funding sources.
• Earlier in the year, Arts Council England announced that Croydon will be a “Priority Place” for its funding programmes and so we have realigned the Ignite programme to ACE strategic objectives to maximise the likelihood of Croydon Organisation being successful in their applications.
• The overall theme of system change remains and has been further developed with the following five aims underpinning the programme: Society is fairer, young people have more support, our communities are more actively engaged in culture, our cultural sector is greener and our communities are healthier.
• The structure of the proposed delivery plan reflects this emphasis on system change with our communities on a grassroots working more directly with our cultural and creative sector in delivering the programme.