Regeneration focus for new funding

Seven “imaginative and ambitious” projects will see artists and agencies in Wales join forces with local people to develop regeneration initiatives that aim to make a real difference to the quality of life in their communities. Funded by the Arts Council of Wales (ACW) through a new initiative known as ‘Ideas: People: Places’, the projects chosen to share £2.5m over three years aim to put the arts at the heart of their communities and will involve partners such as housing associations, commercial landlords and property owners.

The projects, all of which have regeneration as their core goal, are described by ACW as adopting “a thoughtful and creative approach to regeneration – an approach that connects and empowers communities, seeing them as important contributors to the regeneration process”. A collaboration between Wales’s largest social landlord RCT Homes, Valley’s Kids and Artes Mundi will involve artists working on new ideas for the regeneration of local communities and public spaces within a large programme of environmental improvements to the local housing stock. A partnership between Volcano Theatre and a social landlord operating across Neath, Port Talbot and Swansea will be creating social spaces alongside Swansea High Street. The other projects will take place in Blaenau Gwent, Newport, Llandudno, Haverfordwest and Caernarfon. Nathalie Camus from the Arts Council of Wales said: “We've seen the arts make an enormous difference to communities already and believe passionately that there's much more that can be achieved if we work together on a large scale and over a longer timescale.”