21 October 2011
A new strategy to boost Eastbourne’s cultural, tourism and leisure industries has been approved by council leaders.
The Cultural Development Framework will seek to attract greater investment in the town to help grow the offer for both residents and visitors while generating stronger community leadership and more partnerships, helping to develop skills and generate more jobs in the sector locally.
Research recently conducted by Tourism South East revealed that Tourism already supports 5,235 FTE jobs in Eastbourne and once part-time and seasonal employment is added, the total number of jobs supported increased to 7,160 actual jobs in the town.
These jobs are spread across a wide range of service sectors from catering and retail to public service jobs such as in local government, cultural and leisure attractions.
The new Framework sets out a number of ambitions to coordinate the work of the many providers of cultural activity, community led and participatory arts, sports and leisure and creative businesses to consolidate the value of culture, tourism and sport to the town’s future prosperity.
The document highlights more than 40 broad ranging actions to kick start a long-term vision for culture in the town, which fall into four key priority themes, including:
- Participation – encouraging local innovation and excellence through new partnerships to embrace the town’s full talent base
- Creative Enterprise – supporting a thriving local economy with strong, connected businesses and organisations
- A Thriving Cultural Landscape – supporting cultural tourism through excellence and interactive experiences
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Our Cultural Infrastructure – providing accessible, open, active and surprising places and spaces
The plan also includes identifies six actions which are needed to ensure the full programme is a success, including establishing a governance board from the former Working Group, gain the support of Arts Council for specific activity, feasibility work for cultural regeneration opportunities such as at the Redoubt and bringing together a forum or online network for people in the sector to come together and take the lead.
Cllr Neil Stanley, portfolio holder for leisure and tourism, said: “Eastbourne has many distinctive and unique cultural qualities that sit at the heart of what makes our town so popular with residents young and old and the many thousands of tourists who visit us every year.
“Protecting and enhancing our cultural offer is therefore crucial to the economic prosperity of Eastbourne and the environment in which we live and work.
“The Cultural Development Framework will help us to achieve shared goals by forging better partnerships with the community and stakeholder groups, ultimately helping to make Eastbourne a better place and a leading destination resort.”
Leading cultural strategy experts Tom Fleming Consultancy were appointed from a shortlist of experts, to support this work, thanks to a grant from the government for developing Culture and Sport for hard to reach groups.
They began a major review in January this year into what makes Eastbourne distinctive, which included conversations with over two hundred local people alongside local businesses, clubs and organisations across the cultural sector.
Over the months, the wide ranging programme began to focus on those areas which people felt were of the greatest importance such as the town’s heritage, its art venues, creative businesses, young people and education, public space, its community facilities and parks and its sport and leisure infrastructure, ultimately shaping the Framework which will be delivered in various stages.
A Cultural Development Board, made up of a wide range of key stakeholders, will steer the work proposed in the plan and will be tasked with monitoring its successes and seeking to work closely with sectors considered to be “significant contributors” to the cultural identity of the town.
The Framework sits alongside the new Local Development Framework and Community Strategy and comes after the significant success of ‘the cultural context’, a previous strategy formed in 2002 which secured funding for events, leisure and cultural facilities and marketing strategies.
