Councillor Tudor Evans OBE (Leader) and was supported by Hannah Harris.

A place based culture strategy which would takeover from ‘The Vital Spark’ strategy ran until 2020. This new strategy would run from 2021 to 2030.

Plymouth City Council had comissioned arts development companies and audience agencies to work with Plymouth which explored data capture to understand the scale and impact of the Sector. Due to the impact of COVID and subsequent lockdown the strategy was paused to reflect on the appropriateness on developing a long term plan, whilst companies and individuals had been in crisis. The feedback however had been to accelerate progress, the positive of the first lockdown had been to allow the team to stop and reflect and plan this strategy thoroughly looking to the future.

Work had been completed to understand the value of the sector to Plymouth; £34 million spent in Plymouth from visitors; 74% of visitors had been attracted to Plymouth because of its history and heritage; £50 million had been invested in arts and culture in Plymouth in the last five years; £4 million in income has been generated from grass roots music venues; 95 opportunities had been created every week for young people by non-profit cultural organisations in Plymouth; 2,130 jobs had been supported by businesses and organisations in Plymouth; 1 million people go to events organised by creative and cultural organisations in Plymouth every year; 1,200 performance workshops and events had been hosted every year by non-profit cultural organisations in Plymouth; 31,117 musicians played at 2,829 events organised by grass root music venues which were attended by 294,216 people every year.

The consultation process had held 40 1:1 stakeholder interviews from the culture sector and beyond in order to have a sense of what Plymouth unique offer is, what the strategy would be and how Plymouth would position itself moving forward.

Thematics had been tested within focus group consultation workshops and the vision was refined subsequent to those workshops. A few individual groups were less represented and were engaged with through a number of partner organisations such as Marjons University, Beyond Face, Funky Llama, Plymouth and Devon Freelance Task Force and the Barbican Theatres ReBels young people group.

A survey to evaluate the impact of COVID had been undertaken to understand the impact and what Plymouth would be losing from the sector as well as evaluating what Plymouth would gain.

The vision for this strategy was to form Plymouth into a magnet city attracting artists, creatives and social activists. Our City’s appeal is characterised by Plymouth’s commitment to people and planet which had been evidenced by the cultural offer it reflects by including and valuing our diverse communities.

There are five programmes of work:

(1)

Our city is our venue; to look at the City’s infrastructure to ensure culture can happen, whether this is through installation of Wi-Fi, creating designated zones for culture and performance, creating spaces where there is light of electricity, having under cover spaces or opening up spaces.

(2)

To create a programme for a year of culture and activity and to make this visible and accessible.

(3)

To be an economic driver for jobs

(4)

Creating community clusters where other services can’t get to

(5)

To be able to explain to people through data the impact that the sector has on the City

(1)

Adopt the Culture Plan, subject to recommendations made in the forthcoming scrutiny meeting on 10 March 2021.

(2)

Mandate Plymouth Culture to develop a two year implementation plan, supported by city stakeholders.