Headlines
- Overall, the level of engagement with culture in the North East is equal to the English average.
- The North East attracts over seventy million day visits a year.
Introduction
Culture plays an important role in the social and economic life of the region as:
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An economic driver
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A tool for the development of people and communities
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A driver for creating , enhancing and promoting a vibrant cultural environment
Heritage
Heritage plays a significant role in helping to regenerate communities. Successful regeneration often requires viable and sustainable economic or community uses for heritage assets whose original use has disappeared. The region’s museums. Libraries and archives also have a role to play in regeneration; contributing to tourism, education and improved quality of life through increased cultural and leisure opportunities. In these ways, heritage plays an important role in economic well being.
Local councils, encouraged by central government, are working with local partners and local people to create what are referred to as ‘sustainable communities’. A sustainable community is one where people live, work and thrive in high quality places and where there is a balance in the environmental, social and economic components that define an area. The historic environmental sector plays a fundamental role in creating and underpinning sustainable places and in delivering environmental, social, and economic well-being.
In 2008 the North East had 12,237 buildings listed as being of special architectural or historical interest on the register maintained by the Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS). The vast majority are Grade II with, with 387 at Grade I and 743 at Grade II*.
Assessing the overall condition of historic environment assets and identifying those facing the greatest pressures is of critical importance to understanding the state of England’s heritage. It also provides the basis for undertaking the actions and committing the resources necessary to alleviate those threats so as to reduce the number of heritage assets at risk.
Though the North East has the fewest entries on the Buildings at risk register, in 2008 (123) it remains the region with the highest percentage of Grade I and II* listed building at risk in the country (7.2% compared with the national average of 3.1%). However, this rate has fallen faster in recent years than the rate for England as a whole.
The 2009/10 Taking Part Survey reveals that around 74.4% of all adults had attended at least one historic environment site during the past 12 months, which is an increase on the 2005/06 rate of 69.1%. The North East figure for historic environment attendance is higher to the national average figure of 70.4%.
Museums, Libraries and Archives
The best museums, libraries and archives can help improve a community or place by embedding excellence, scholarship, creativity and diversity as well as being engaging and enjoyable places for people to visit and use. The North East has 67 accredited museums and 10 designated collections of national significance.
The 2009/10 Taking Part survey indicates that 49.4% of North East respondents attended a museum in the past 12 months. This is slightly higher than the English average of 46.7%. Attendance at museums in the North East improved slightly compared to the baseline period 2005/06. Only 2 other English regions also saw museum attendance rise over the same period – the rest experienced realtively modest decreases.
The proportion of people in the North East who said that they had used a library in the past 12 months in 2009/10 according to the Taking Part Survey stands at 42.9%. This is 2 percentage points lower than in the baseline period 2005/06, although attendance has fluctuated over the intervening period. The North East figure for Library attendance is 3% higher than the English average figure. From having one of the lowest attendance rates in 2005/06, the North East now has one of the highest rates in England, lower than only than only the South East and comparable to the East Midlands. However, there seems to be a clear downward trernd in library attendance over the period 2005/06 - 2009/10 nationally and regionally. These numbers, however, do not take account of the new ways people access library services via new technologies. But a reduction in library attendance may also be linked to other factors including increased availablity of cheap paperback books from retail outlets such as supermarkets.
Sport
In 2002 the UK Government published a document called Game Plan: Achieving the governments’ sports and physical activity objectives. The report is considered to be the most comprehensive sports policy report ever from government and it was published by the Social Exclusion unit in conjunction with DCMS. This reflects the perceived role that government saw for sport in terms of developing society.
The role of sport in achieving the government’s social inclusion agenda is summarised in the DCMS PAT 10 report (published in 1999). The aim of the report was to ‘draw up an action plan with targets to maximise the impact of arts, sport and leisure policies in contributing to neighbourhood regeneration and increasing local participation’. In 2008 DCMS replaced the ‘Game Plan’ report with ‘Playing to Win: a new era for sport’ which shifts focus from sport as a social intervention to that of performance and excellence, perhaps influenced by the upcoming 2012 Olympics. Despite a policy shift towards excellence in sport the argument still remains that sport is not only important for health and well-being but also in tackling social exclusion and improving the quality of place in a community.
The 2008/09 Active People Survey reveals that the North East rate is very similar to the English average for the proportion of people who exercise for 30 minutes at least three days a week – with 21.3% of the total north east population reporting that they do this. The North East has a broadly similar showing to London and the North West of England.
The South East and South West have the highest activity levels with 22.9% of the population reporting at least three weekly exercise sessions. The least active region based on this measure is the West Midlands which reported that 20.1% of the population are active to this extent.
In 2008/09 the Active People survey indicates 4.2% if the North East population were involved in sports volunteering of at least one hour per week, the second lowest rate of volunteering in England ahead of London which had a 3.3% volunteer rate in sport. The region with the highest rate of sport volunteers amongst adults is the South West with 5.5% of the adult population volunteering.
The Arts
The arts can play an important role in improving the quality of place in a community. The Arts Council England strives to bring art to as many people as possible and believes that “Great art inspires us, brings us together, and teaches us about ourselves and the world around us. In short, it makes life better.”
The national objectives set out in the Arts Council England’s plan 2008-2011 are:
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Excellence - high quality arts and high-quality arts experience
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Reach - more people attending and taking part in the arts
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Engagement - more people feel that there are opportunities to enjoy and get actively involved in, arts activities that are personally relevant to them
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Diversity - arts that reflect the diversity of contemporary England
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Innovation - artists have the freedom and are challenged to innovate
The Arts Council North East plans to invest £50 million from the government and the lottery between 2008 and 2011.
The Arts and Business Private Investment Survey provides data about the level of cultural sponsorship in every region. The figures are adjusted to look at investment levels per VAT registered business in order to demonstrate the value placed on culture by the private sector without the figures being skewed by the private sector from region to region. In the North East private investment in culture is marginally below the English average – however this figure is massively distorted due to London’s vast cultural sponsorship levels (over £125 million during 2005-06). Discounting London, the North East has by far the highest amount of cultural sponsorship (£97 per business) – the East of England has the lowest amount with only £47 worth of sponsorship per business in the region. The North East experienced a substantial increase in art investment between 2004/05 and 2005/06 by just over 70% - equating to the second highest regional improvement behind the South West.
The DCMS Taking Part Survey monitors arts attendance and arts participation. The most recent survey results (2009/10) shows that the North East performs below the national average on this measure. The percentage of respondents who said that they had engaged with an arts event either as a participant or as an attendee during the past 12 months was 71.4% in the North East. Only the East Midlands was lower among the English regions, and compares to the English average figure of 75.7%. However the regional figure does reflect an improvement of over 1 percentage point compared with the baseline period of 2005/06, whereas nationally the figure dropped slightly.
Tourism
The North East’s Regional Image campaign was launched in 2005; the campaign aims to raise the profile of the region’s quality of life offer as well as positioning North East England as a great location to invest, do business, live, work and visit. From September 2008, the campaign evolved to focus on business and innovation. In support of the regional image campaign, the region’s first Tourism Strategy was launched in February 2005; this sets out ambitious targets for growth both in visitor numbers and what they spend.
The four main objectives aim to:
- Attract more domestic and overseas visitors into the region
- Increase visitors’ average spend
- Increase visits throughout the year, not solely in the main holiday season, and
- Grow the distribution of tourism across the region
In 2008, there were around four and a half million visits to the North East from UK and overseas visitors according to the UKTS/ IPS definition*. Other national sources** suggest that visitors to the North East make up just over 3% of the total for England as a whole.
Between 1999 and 2006 the number of visitors in England has varied but has generally shown a downward trend in UK visitors and an increase in overseas visitors.
STEAM data***, generated in the region, is able to provide a more complete picture of Tourism in the North East as it identifies all visits to the region in any given year. This data shows that there were 8.6 million night visits and 74 million day visits in 2006.
National studies suggest that overseas visitors to the region spent, on average 2 times more than UK visitors. Overseas visitors tend to have longer stays (approximately 2 times) than UK visitors – and the average spent per visit by overseas visitors was the below average in the North East but above average for a UK visitor.
Footnotes
* This data is from UKTS and IPS; the figure is based on where an individual took their last trip at the time of asking and so does not capture all visits to the North East but is comparable with other English regions.
**UK Tourism Survey
*** Global Tourism Solutions using the Scarborough Tourism Economic Activity Model (STEAM), on behalf of One North East