CPP projects: Midlands

Creative People and Places funds 8 projects across the Midlands. Find out more about each project.

Amber Valley

Amber Valley,  Make/Shift 

Project partners: University of Derby (Lead), Derby Museums, Amber Valley CVS, Derbyshire Wildlife Trust, Belper and District u3a. 

This investment will support a programme of cultural activity in the Amber Valley, Derbyshire. Their long term vision supports communities to shape arts and cultural provision and encourage participation in excellent art and culture.

Their consortium structure and approach models collaboration between Higher Education, communities, arts, and the voluntary sector. They want to support new and different approaches to genuinely engage people in shaping provision, working with a variety of partners to address themes relevent themes for their communities. 

Ashfield

Ashfield, Bolsover, Mansfield and North East Derbyshire, First Art

Project partners: First Art (Lead), Creswell Crags Heritage Centre, Junction Arts, Active Partners Trust and Bolsover Together. 

This exciting partnership links several different cultural and community organisations across a region covering the former coalfields of North East Derbyshire and North East Nottinghamshire. It’s an area with scattered communities and poor public transport, but First Art aims to combat this through a wide range of inspiring cultural activities within easy reach of the whole area.

This investment will support the continuation of current CPP activity for Bolsover, Ashfield, Mansfield and North East Derbyshire for a further 3 years to March 2025. An annual First Art programme will deliver a community led, coproduced, high-quality programme of arts activity and engagement, with and for the people in our area. 

Boston and South Holland | Transported

Boston and South Holland, Transported

Project partners: University of Lincoln (Lead) Centre for Culture and Creativity, Boston in Bloom, Tonic Health, East Lindsey District Council, Boston College, Boston Borough Council, South Holland District Council. 

Transported, Time and Tide is an innovative programme of arts activity in rural Boston and South Holland to increase engagement in the arts delivering Place-making, where projects improve and enrich the area, self-making, contributing to individuals’ development, health and wellbeing and Community-making where confidence, skills, and social capital form healthy and resilient places to live, work and to visit.

Corby and Wellingborough | Made with Many

Corby and Wellingborough, Made with Many  

Project partners: Groundwork Northamptonshire, Corby Cube Theatre Trust, Corby Community Arts, Corby Unity, Northamptonshire Enterprise Partnership, Teamwork Trust, Wellingborough Homes

Made with Many aims to inspire more local Corby and Wellingborough people than ever before to take the lead in experiencing, creating and taking part in high quality arts and cultural activities. Between 2022 and 2025, Made With Many (previously known as Made in Corby) will bring together their Corby & Wellingborough CPP programmes into a single programme of exciting, new and innovative cultural projects, events & workshops led by the local community. 

Dudley, Sandwell, Walsall and Wolverhampton | Creative Black Country

Dudley, Sandwell, Walsall and Wolverhampton, Creative Black Country  

Project partners: Black Country Together (Lead), Dudley Council for Voluntary Service, One Walsall, Sandwell Council of Voluntary Organisations (SCVO), Wolverhampton Voluntary Sector Council, Black Country Living Museum (BCLM), Black Country Touring (BCT) and Multistory. 

Creative Black Country aims to make the most of local talent, working with people to discover, explore and grow an exciting and meaningful programme of arts activity. This investment will build on their learning from the past 7 years for this new phase of work as a combined CPP covering the whole Black Country region – Dudley, Sandwell, Walsall and Wolverhampton.

Creative Black Country will deliver against the CPP outcomes with co-created and place-based activity including Creative Communities and Connections, plus activity to develop opportunities and sustainability across the sector locally, strategic partnership working and commitment to developing work around access and inclusion. 

Redditch | Reimagine Redditch

Redditch, Reimagine Redditch 

Project partners: Bromsgrove and Redditch Network -BARN (Lead), Arts in Redditch, Forthright Arts (trading name Jestaminute Community Theatre), Redditch Borough Council, Severn Arts. 

Reimagine Redditch is a launch-pad – inviting residents to think big and, if they wish, propose a new name. Supporting Redditch’s cultural recovery from COVID-19, they want to make sure that everyone who lives there has the chance to participate in building back better, using digital to enhance an amazing and much-needed physical offer, rather than as a substitute for it.

They envision a 10-year programme of activity, themed around interlinked strands. These strands reflect their knowledge of Redditch and its demography, as well as engagement with hundreds of people online and in person. Each strand’s name reflects Redditch’s 100+ languages. 

Staffordshire Moorlands | Outside

Staffordshire Moorlands, Outside

Project partners: Support Staffordshire (Lead), B arts, Staffordshire Moorlands District Council, Buxton and Leek College. 

Outside will empower diverse Co-curator and Community Champion teams to co-create and deliver excellent arts and cultural activities rooted in local life, while building a lasting people-based infrastructure for the arts. Outside will build on the experience and networks of a third sector infrastructure organisation. Together they will co-create learning about how to change arts and cultural leadership in these distinctive rural settings and change whose voices are heard.

Stoke-on-Trent and Newcastle-under-Lyme | Appetite

Stoke-on-Trent and Newcastle-under-Lyme, Appetite  

Project partners: New Vic Theatre (Lead), Partners in Creative Learning (PiCL), Staffordshire University, 6Towns Radio, Go Kidsgrove, Keele University and Newcastle-under-Lyme BID.  

Since 2013, Appetite has been serving up a feast of family-friendly arts experiences designed with and for local communities in Stoke-on-Trent and in 2019 expanded their activity to include Newcastle-under-Lyme. This investment will build on strengths, embedded learning, community decision-making and strong partnership working to bring a distinctive, vibrant and varied menu of community-led, co-produced arts activity to more people across North Staffordshire.