A 'Public Private Partnership' ? back in 1997 all the phrase conjured up for me was some strange amalgamation between commercial and not-for-profit concerns, writes Alison Duthie.
This concept seemed to have been promoted for years by governments of all persuasions, and could potentially fill gaps in arts provision that the Lottery had failed to reach.
The situation
Four years on in Barnet, we are just eighteen months away from the opening of a £15m arts centre, ?artsdepot?, which is planned as a 'mini South Bank Centre' for North London, offering:
? a 400 seat flexible and fully accessible theatre with flytower
? a 150 seat studio theatre equipped for digital arts practice and ideal for children's theatre events and educational activity
? a gallery with resources for an artist in residence, installation, digital links and video art
? fully equipped dance, drama and visual art studios
? accommodation for Barnet College's Performing Arts and Public Art courses and Community Focus Disability Arts.
The arts spaces sit alongside commercial elements, which include 155 private flats in a fourteen storey block, a health and fitness centre, various retail units and bars and restaurants.
The building is rapidly emerging from the ground, the pre-opening programme is underway and the partners preparing for their move, yet it may not happen! In May, the Barnet local Council shifted by three seats from Labour to Conservative control. The new administration have publicly stated their opposition to the plans, and are moving through new proposals as quickly as possible to reconfigure the spaces, potentially replacing the theatre and studio spaces with a library and media centre.
The background
The Bull (previously The Old Bull Arts Centre) has been the professional arts centre in the Borough for the last twenty years. Our building, a charming conversion of an old coaching inn is leaking, creaking and bursting at the seams with activity. The Bull has gone through a remarkable process of growth over the last few years, with audiences and activities tripling, the establishment of a thriving education programme, and a successful focus on culturally diverse arts and projects. Relocation into the new building, with our history, funding relationships, audiences and partners, is the core focus for the new centre.
The PPP aspect of the scheme has gone beyond a straightforward deal on land, profit and community benefit between the Council and the Developer Partner. The basis of the plan was that the Local Authority contributed the land and made a capital contribution of £2m.The commercial partner, Wilson Connolly /Chiltern Investments, are building the whole development and providing the arts centre, valued at around £14m.This represents excellent value for the community, and on the arts side, we feel genuinely excited about the opportunities that could be opened up by placing high quality arts provision at the centre of a town centre regeneration project. But beyond this we have put in place a partnership between professional arts practice, higher education and disability arts, in order to provide a new approach for arts audiences and makers.
With the financial structure in place, awareness of the project in the wider arts community is growing. We have our own small arts team (of two and a half people) and The Bull's role is integral to the planning of the new centre. Wonderful partners have come on board ? building on the very interesting smaller scale work that we've developed at The Bull, working proactively with young contemporary and emerging artists in theatre, dance and visual art, with a particular emphasis on British Asian and other diverse forms. We are planning a focus on new digital art forms as well as companies in residence, participation in national and international festivals and a multi-artform commissioning programme.
The problem
As an outer London cultural resource, we have no access to statutory central government support. It seems that whole swathes of outer London, traditionally the boroughs that swing between Labour and Conservative control, lose interesting arts projects on a regular basis. artsdepot is by no means the only project at this kind of risk. Along with Enfield, Havering and other regions outside the capital, we need direct investment in order to support and build on the highly relevant projects that have grown up over the years.
The ongoing perception of the outer London boroughs as leafy suburbs populated by elderly white middle class communities needs to be challenged. Barnet is the fastest growing borough in the capital with 340,000 residents, has the largest Gujarati, Jewish, Japanese and Greek communities as well as isolated pockets of extreme economic deprivation. Some of the most interesting new arts initiatives originate in venues around the periphery of the capital: BAC, The Bull, Watermans Arts Centre, Stratford Circus and the Theatre Royal, The Tricycle. The work produced by these venues is developed in partnership with relevant communities, supports the work of emerging and young artists and links the needs of excluded communities to creative activity. This work frequently goes on to be presented in central London venues, and outer London venues are committed to their role in supporting this process. Placing the arts in a practical relationship with commercial activity, education and other community resources, maximizes the opportunity for this to take place. Cutting off the lifeblood of these activities threatens the future of culture as an integral and relevant aspect of our lives.
We currently find ourselves, having committed significant time and resources over the last four years to the development of this project, in an entirely uncertain position. We are confident of the viability of artsdepot, its relevance and significance to the wider arts picture in the capital, and of the level of support from arts funders, partner venues, practitioners and producers. The next few weeks are crucial. This kind of project relies on effort, negotiation and trust on both sides. The benefits can be tremendous, but the risks in the current climate can equal these. When we embarked upon the building of artsdepot as part of a PPP I had imagined that the greatest threat might come from profit hungry developers ? it is ironic that it should come from the public side of the partnership.
Alison Duthie is Director of artsdepot t: 0208 359 2032; w: http://www.artsdepot.co.uk e: alison.duthie@artsdepot.co.uk