Duo to create 10-year cultural plan for Nottingham

Nottingham’s Strategic Cultural Partnership (SCP) has appointed creative consultancy Bird & Gorton to produce a 10-year cultural framework for the city.

Nottingham’s Creative Quarters says the Cultural Framework will help to create jobs, grow Nottingham’s cultural, creative and digital industries, bring funding and investment into the city, encourage tourism and create opportunities for local people of all ages and parts of the city.

Paul Russ, SCP chair and CEO at Dance4, said: “Nottingham’s Cultural Framework will help to bring together artists, creative practitioners, education organisations, the community and voluntary sector, the creative workforce and larger well-established cultural organisations like Nottingham Playhouse, Nottingham Contemporary and Theatre Royal and Royal Concert Hall around a strong shared vision, opening up more strategic opportunities around culture

Dr Hannah Bird

and areas like tourism, public health, regeneration, economic growth, sport and physical activity, schools and adult and social services.”

Bird & Gorton is led by Hannah Bird and Dr Ceri Gorton. Gorton has worked in Nottingham for over 10 years, helping arts organisations, museums and universities to develop collaborative ways of working and innovative new strategies and programmes. She devised and delivered a city-wide strategy for arts and culture in Oxford and has also worked with The Guardian, British Council and Arts Council England.

Bird’s work is focused on developing collaborative projects between the cultural sector and other disciplines. She developed a strategy for creative vision at Bletchley Park and has worked with NASA, The Open University, the national cultural network What Next?, the Southbank Centre in London and the University of the Arts, London.

Kathy McArdle, CEO of Nottingham’s Creative Quarter welcomes the development of the framework. She said: “Despite a challenging funding backdrop, Nottingham’s cultural sector has been resilient. The spirit to make, express and create in partnership has strongly emerged and multiple channels and networks now exist across the city to help support and nourish Nottingham’s cultural ecology. That means it’s a great time to develop a strong, independent cultural framework for the city, building on this success and developed in conversation with the public.”

Ceri Gorton

Brendan Moffett, new CEO of Marketing Nottingham and Nottinghamshire, said: “The cultural life of Nottingham is vibrant, dynamic and exciting and we know that it makes an enormous contribution to the visitor economy and businesses looking to invest in the city.

“Nottingham needs a strong cultural offer to support economic growth and to be a competitive global city. Marketing Nottingham and Nottinghamshire has been working with ‘Thinking Place’ a leading place-branding consultancy on how we create a compelling and consistent narrative for our great city.

“Both Nottingham’s mainstream and alternative cultural offers are vital to this city and we look forward to collaborating with the SCP and Bird and Gorton to ensure we work in a joined-up way to tell this story.”