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In May this year, the final contracts were signed for The Public Building, a £40m arts and technology project in West Bromwich, formerly known as c/PLEX. The project signals a groundbreaking partnership of funding groups, writes Karen Yeomans. Designed by Will Alsop, the Public Building will house business incubation space, lifelong learning facilities, gallery, education centre, conference centre, cafes and restaurants.

As the regional development agency for the West Midlands ? including the rural counties of Shropshire, Worcestershire, Staffordshire, Herefordshire and Warwickshire ? Advantage West Midlands (AWM) will deploy almost £1bn over the next three years to create jobs and stimulate economic growth. But an often understated part of our work involves regenerating communities and establishing better quality of life in the region. Promoting the arts and nurturing the creative industries is a key way of doing this. The economic impact of a thriving cultural sector to a region which boasts Shakespeare, Tolkien, Tony Hancock and Edward Burne-Jones as some of its most famous sons, is clear.

The economic benefits of the arts are clear ? not only do they create jobs, but by giving a cultural vitality and vibrancy to a region, the arts also attract visitors, tourism and investment. Taking the most obvious example, the Public Building will create jobs and play a pivotal role in the regeneration of one of the most deprived boroughs in the country. The conference facility will bring both national and international visitors into the region, stimulating tourism and, equally importantly, bringing in new ideas. This is a classic case of partners ? Government Office for the West Midlands, Sandwell Council, the Arts Council Lottery, Greets Green New Deal for Communities Fund and AWM ? working together to drive through an arts project of international importance.

While The Public Building is undeniably the flagship project in AWM?s arts portfolio, there are a host of other important schemes taking place across the region which aim to bring the West Midlands to the cultural fore. In 2000, AWM identified creative industries as one of eight business sectors which should be specially targeted for diversification and modernisation, or early development in the case of ?new? industries in the West Midlands Regional Economic Strategy. One of several areas identified as having an existing strong focus for creative industries was Herefordshire and it is here that many of the pioneering and thriving projects, funded by AWM in partnership with the European Union, Business Links and Herefordshire Council, are based. Examples of these include Flicks in the Sticks, a project set up to bring the latest films to rural communities. This has been responsible for 210 screenings in 34 village hall venues in the first year. The Borderlines Film Festival in March involved more than 5,000 people at 90 screenings and events at 18 different venues across Herefordshire and Shropshire, including talks by Alex Cox, Gillies MacKinnon and Sophie Fiennes.

Across the whole West Midlands the agency has joined with the European Regional Development Fund and Arts Council England to set up the £5m Advantage Creative Fund which offers venture capital to creative industries firms. The fund is expected to help more than 50 companies realise their potential over the next five years and is open to proposals from a wide range of creative businesses with the potential to grow rapidly, including start-up enterprises and established firms in areas such as design, interactive leisure software, publishing, music, film, TV and radio. Nurturing the already well-established creative industries in the region is key to the work that AWM is doing to help make the West Midlands a world-class place to live, work, visit, invest and study.


Karen Yeomans is Director of Development and Partnerships for Advantage West Midlands w: http://www.advantagewm.co.uk