All Together Now: Culture and the Planning System in the South West
Thursday 3 March, 2005, Winter Gardens, Weston-super-Mare
This was the fifth event in the Culture Works series of seminars and conferences addressing key issues affecting the cultural sector in the South West. Organised jointly by Culture South West and Sport England, with the support of the Chief Cultural and Leisure Officers Association (CLOA), the Institute of Leisure and Amenity Management (ILAM) and the Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI), the conference focused on the new spatial planning system and the opportunities it offers for the development of cultural infrastructure in the South West. To download a full report on the conference, please click here.
The event was well attended, with over 100 participants representing local authority planning and leisure/cultural services, regional cultural agencies, lottery funders, Regional Assembly, South West RDA and a range of other bodies. Kevin Murray, a highly respected town planner and Past President of the RTPI, chaired the day and speakers addressed key topics:
- the new spatial planning system and how the cultural sector can engage with it
- planning obligations and how cultural infrastructure may be enhanced through developer contributions
- developing sustainable communities through a more holistic approach embracing community consultation, effective planning and good design
Please click on the appropriate title to download the presentations of Chris Marsh (Developing planning obligations (PDF 620kb)); Juliet Bidgood (Delivering sustainable communities (PDF 3.16mb)); Jim Claydon (The new spatial planning system (PDF 211kb)).
In addition, there were six workshops on a range of related topics which explored the main workshop theme in greater depth and discussed the practicalities of how the cultural sector might engage more effectively with the planning system.
Key messages to emerge were:
- there are significant opportunities for cultural infrastructure to be developed and community needs met, through the new spatial planning system
- the cultural sector needs to get in early: engaging with the system as early as possible is likely to be the most effective way of influencing the process
Feedback on the event was very positive with several delegates commenting that it was the most useful conference they have attended for some time.
“I …thoroughly enjoyed the experience and thought it was all very professionally organised with an engaging atmosphere. The main speakers were first class, and I certainly felt that this was one of the best events I have been to for a while.“
(A local authority head of leisure services).
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