Supporting you as we fight for London's creative sector

My team at London’s City Hall supports culture, creative industries and London to be a 24 hour city. We’re busy helping to support these important sectors through times of intense change and challenge, create fairer and more inclusive high streets and communities, and position London as a global leader.?

‘Stealing’ and sharing the best ideas in the world!

At the beginning of the month, I was part of the World Cities Culture Forum in Helsinki, with our Deputy Mayor for Culture and Creative Industries, Justine Simons OBE OBE, who is the Founder and Chair of the Forum.

World Cities Culture Forum brings together cultural policy leaders and Deputy Mayors from city governments in more than 40 cities across 6 continents. We share successes and challenges on the role of culture in cities in what we call an ‘IP free zone’ – ideas are shared to be used around the globe.

For example, the Creative Land Trust, which the MayorofLondon co-founded in London in partnership with Arts Council England and Bloomberg Philanthropies in 2019, was an idea inspired by the brilliant Community Arts Stabilization Trust (CAST) in San Francisco through World Cities Culture Forum – and Toronto recently opened its own Office for Creative Space, learning from our Culture and Community Spaces at Risk programme here in London.

In Helsinki, we were able to showcase London as a global leader on culture - sharing our work on 24 hr cities, culture, health and wellbeing, and developing cultural spaces and places. We celebrated the tenth anniversary of the Forum with the launch of the latest World Cities Culture Report 2022, focusing on the impact of Covid-19 on cities and the innovative projects cities are undertaking to support their creative sector to recover.

?I left feeling inspired and with new ideas, contacts and emotional support to build on. I can’t put into words how powerful and restorative it was to be in a place with peers fighting the good fight for culture around the world. I’ve recharged my engine and am looking at how we do that as a team now too. It’s hard work this, isn’t it? All power to you all out there.

London at night

London’s high streets are at the heart of the social and economic recovery of our city. With two-thirds of Londoners active at night, and 1.6m people regularly working at night, high streets need to work hard for everyone around the clock.

That’s why the Mayor and our Night Czar, Amy Lamé , are supporting boroughs to help make London a fair, inclusive and sustainable 24 hour city. We’ve produced world-leading guidance on how to create holistic night time strategies that better plan for all aspects of life at night, not just our world-class culture and hospitality.

Excitingly, the Mayor’s new Night Time Enterprise Zones fund is also supporting boroughs and businesses to experiment with new ways of diversifying what’s happening on high streets at night. There is so much demand and opportunity - 18 boroughs applied to the Fund and the Mayor will announce the successful boroughs very soon – watch this space.

Making the case for support

Our team and our partners across London are working hard to create fairer and more inclusive communities. We all know the tremendous effect that the cost-of-living crisis is having both on individuals and organisations. If you run a culture or community space in London, please do fill out this survey to help us lobby for more support for London’s amazing creative and community organisations at this really difficult time.

There is so much to love in the capital and everyone should have a chance to enjoy what’s on their doorstep. Discover the free and affordable events you can enjoy this summer and make a date with London. #LoveLondon

Croydon leads!

Looking forward, change is coming…In 2023 Croydon (my home borough, hurray!) becomes London Borough of Culture. This ￡1.35m programme led by the Mayor supports culture on your doorstep across London. For introduction to the funding opportunities available for small arts organisations working in Croydon, join us at Stanley Arts Croydon on 3 November where we’ll be hosting Arts Council England, National Lottery Heritage Fund, National Lottery Community Fund and local funding bodies including Ignite to showcase the opportunities available to the creative sector.

Hope you’re enjoying the autumn colours out there – take care.

Shonagh