Art is circus, not economic gymnastics - Image by Khali Ackford

As Peter Holbrook, CEO of Social Enterprise UK, challenges the definition of the £428bn “impact economy”, our CEO Emma Harvey asks, what if we stopped counting?

Money Matters: Or why should we stop counting

A quiet shift’s been happening towards the language of economic impact underpinning most conversations about the value of arts, culture and civic life. It’s about maths right so it’s important, or so we tell ourselves. Only, it doesn’t hold any value to us or our people. A kind of gymnastics, only it's all contortion without a rhythm or flow and leaves us feeling hollow. If you’ve found yourself sleepwalking into measuring legitimacy through this lens and wondered, how did we get here? you're not alone.

Profit isn’t a dirty word. Many charities are social enterprises in some form and should absolutely measure profitability. We know what makes a surplus and what that surplus has to carry. Whoever you are - and especially if you have less of it - financial literacy is survival. Money matters.

But it is also reductive. It flattens complex human work into numbers never designed to hold it. And we’ve seen what happens when this logic hardens. Take NEET contracts reengaging 16-18 year olds. Early on at Trinity we were able to make contacts like this work, to give intensive support to those young people whose needed it most. But over successive contract cycles, payment-by-results milestones became unattainable for smaller providers, shifting provision towards volume. Quietly, young people were sorted into those who were fixable and fundable and those too costly to help. If value’s only defined economically, what becomes of us unviables?

Economic impact does little to convert minds not already convinced. The economic case for culture has been made repeatedly by folk with far more letters after their names than me. We know about local economic multiplier effects and how vibrant cultural spaces animate high streets. When art makes a place thrive speculative investment often follows. That movement of money is all the proof you need.

Getting small organisations to count what doesn’t matter all that much to people distracts and detracts, pulling scarce energy towards chasing ghosts. Time is spent proving, calculating and modelling experiences into metrics to services decision-makers we may never meet. It shapes programmes around what can be counted rather than what is needed. Measurement isn’t neutral; it consumes time, attention and worst of all our spirit. And like any beast, we’ll never fully sate it.

Economic impact language blurs the boundary between profit and purpose. Peter Holbrook, chief executive of Social Enterprise UK, recently warned of this risk, with the £428bn “impact economy” defined in a way favouring investor-led models over ones built explicitly for public benefit. When everything is framed within the same metrics it’s a game we can’t win. It allows those primarily driven by profit to say, “Oh yes, we also care too”. And then carbon offsetting permits continued extraction and recycling bins in clothing stores capture our sense of doing good while production patterns remain unchanged. Language that - if we also adopt it - softens the edges of power structures to allow them to remain unchallenged.

Community organisations cannot outcompete on terrain designed for capital and conquest. Adopting this language without challenge collapses extraction and reinvestment, shareholder return and community accountability. The promise that continued growth will eventually lift everyone impact rests on a fading ideology and many communities have lived long enough through iterations of that promise to treat it with scepticism. That’s dangerous especially right now because it deepens disenfranchisement of those who already have lost trust and faith in decision-makers' intentions. Growth is happening just not for you. You don’t matter to us.

When we centre growth as proof of value we risk reinforcing the same scarcity logic that traps minds and builds conflict. Someone else out there is winning whilst I’m losing. We risk aligning ourselves with a world that many already experience as failing them. When growth doesn’t translate into feeling better off, people look sideways to see who is benefitting. And then we're in cookie cartoon territory, where the dude sits behind a plate piled high pointing at the one due opposite the other whilst saying, He's taking what's yours. It's data to stoke tension between those who feel they’re losing out because of a notion of a transaction happening elsewhere that’s making someone else better off. And as we're all butting heads, deeper extraction continues unchecked.

Money matters for most only in the direct transaction sense. Pay people to do the work that needs to be done as well as you can afford. Don’t ask artists to work for free. Pay young people for their time. Pay communities for their advice. Do not ask people to do more with less while citing economic impact. Don’t push the boulder up the hill by exploiting your team or yourself. If a claim made somewhere doesn’t translate to wages if folks’ pockets it’s a story that rings hollow. I can’t pay my bills with your data.

None of this means abandoning accountability to funders. We should measure what keeps us afloat and be transparent about our finances. When asked to show GVA, it might be worth asking what they’re looking to understand from those numbers, who needs to be assured and whether the absence of economic data lessens the legitimacy of the work. If their response is to scratch their heads and say they don't know and that someone further up the chain is asking, that might at least give us pause for thought. Provide the data and still ask the questions, because following instructions unquestioningly is how we uphold bureaucracies at the expense of ourselves until we all wind up doing more work for less meaning, trapped in a system that rewards compliance over change.

There is no reason for thinking

That, if you give a chance for people to think or live

The arts of thought or life will suffer and become rougher

And not return more than you could ever give

Louis MacNeice, Autumn Journal (1939)

From Use or Ornament, Comedia’s report on the social value of the arts, 1997

At Trinity, I cannot promise folk I’ll make them rich. What I hope we offer is a place for people to come to find connection and build meaning together. A place where stories are shared, mistakes are made and power is practised differently, even if it doesn’t always work out. People come at times at a crossroads in their lives and often move onto bigger and better things. Like that old slouchy jumper, you love it till you wear it right through. It’s a place where value is measured by knowledge, energy and commitment to making things as good as possible with what we have.

The only real arbiter of wealth is the money in my pocket. In what I can give that I don’t need paid back. In the time that it affords me to worry about it less and care about what gives me meaning more. “What is it that breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe?” said Stephen Hawking. Is the arbiter of our worth counted by pounds and pence or the smile on our face at the end of the day and the energy we find to get up again tomorrow. In this world of the now that’s rich with data yet poor on trust, culture’s the fuel for growth, turbo charging connection, courage and conviction. Right now, that may be the more honest thing to count.

This is an opinion piece by Emma Harvey, CEO

Let there be light! Carrek Ltd work to reveal lantern roof at Jacobs Wells Baths. Photos: Elliot Thingston

"Have you forgotten about Jacobs Wells?”

This was my partner, chatting to me last week because January’s been all systems go and all I've been chatting about of late is Citizens for Culture and deliberative democracy and City of Culture and creativity for everyone and Solar Opposites and Pokémon etc etc...

Like him, some of you may have walked past Jacobs Wells Baths and seen scaffolding shooting up and started wondering what on earth is going on inside. Has Emma forgotten about her building babies? Has she finally lost the plot?!

Perhaps.

But behind the boards and beneath the dust, something extraordinary is happening. And we let photographer Elliot Thingston (with his PPE on) inside to take a sneaky peak. As work continues overhead, the transformation may not yet be fully visible from the street. But believe me when I say, the Baths are beginning to breathe again.

As part of the ongoing restoration works to save this building and restore it for the community, heritage contractors Carrek Ltd have been working to remove the internal roof fabric. The old, damaged acoustic foam left behind from its time as a dance centre has revealed for the first time since 1984 the building's original glass lantern roof. When the foam started coming down, we began to see the outline of the lantern structure. To watch the main hall flood with daylight. That was special. You could suddenly understand the architect’s original intention.

What’s Happening Now
The team is removing damaged internal acoustic foam and carefully exposing the historic lantern structure. Original timber and ironwork are being assessed and restored, new glazing is being installed, solar panels added, and external masonry repaired. Phase 1 costs £2.2m and is scheduled to be completed Autumn 2026

Contractors can at times seem faceless, but not this crew. Keith Hoskins, Director of Carrek Ltd is one of the many true passionate folk involved in this recovery effort. I’ve been involved in a few capital projects over the years with my other building baby, the Trinity Centre (don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten her either), and this is the first time I’ve seen someone so utterly determined to climb eight tiers of scaffolding just to witness a moment of restoration. But that’s what a project like this does. It pulls people upward.

A passion project for spirited souls just like Keith. When I was chatting to him up there in the roof heavens he spoke excitedly about the original timber roof noting that, while some areas of the structure have deteriorated over time, the overall quality and craftsmanship of the materials and original build is remarkable.

The team’s priority is to conserve and repair as much of the historic fabric as possible. The existing timber frame will be carefully restored, with a new glass roof introduced above it; one that honours the original design while ensuring the structure performs to contemporary building and environmental standards.

What’s Happening Next
Phase 2 will focus on the restoration of internal fabric and adaptation of the space in response to community consultation. This will include renovation of the interior, a new entrance, WCs, and lift, as well as interpretation and signage, plus a heritage learning and participation programme. Phase 2 costs are estimated at £5.5m and are expected to begin in Spring 2027 (subject to funding)

There’s something deeply symbolic about light returning to this building. Jacobs Wells Baths has always been a place of public gathering and shared experience. Seeing the lantern revealed I hope will serve as a reminder that this isn’t just restoration. It’s a revival.

This is why I am so in love with old buildings. Because, at the beginning, there’s a surge of excitement in that moment of possibility. Then the hard graft begins and it’s all scaffolding, dust, rubble and drilling and pulling things apart and board meetings and spreadsheets and budgets and cost rationalising and more meetings and and and.

And for a while, hope vanishes behind hoardings. And we find it hard to hold onto that end goal of a reimagined space for us. But it’s precisely in these messy, unseen stages that something extraordinary starts to happen. The foundations are laid and that art of the possible truly begins, nudging us steadily closer to that magical moment when the space opens once again and the vision becomes a reality for everyone.

It’s not always easy to create moments inside the building to connect with supporters while major works like this are underway. So, I hope these images offer a glimpse into that window of possibility. A way to see the craftsmanship and care that hides behind the scaffolding and for you all to continue to have faith in us.

I share this to give love and thanks to my dedicated professional team and so people can feel part of the journey. We’re deeply grateful to our community, funders and partners for sticking with us through the complex stages of restoration, and we’re hopeful about what this moment of light signals: the start of the future of this extraordinarily handsome building.

Phase 3 to be continued...?

Because this is not a building story. It’s a flippin’ love story. And all the best love stories come in three parts.

By Emma Harvey, CEO

Thanks to our funders: We’re incredibly grateful for the continued support of our funders and supporters, including MHCLG (Community Ownership Fund), Architectural Heritage Fund, Historic England, The Nisbet Trust, John James Foundation, Merchant Venturers Charitable Trust, Centrica: Energy for Tomorrow, The Pilgrim Trust, Bristol City Council, Sylvia Waddilove and all our individual donors and sponsors. We could not do this without you x

The Seers, Welcome to Deadtown, 1990

On the day of the announcement that Bristol intends to bid to become UK City of Culture 2029, Trinity's CEO Emma Harvey reflects on comfort, justice and freedom of expression...

Folk are fed up with feeling broke. With political change being slow. With public services not working properly. Fed up of being polite and patient while people with power blame and game. Time poverty shrinks our lives. The ground beneath us feels uncertain.

This town is dead, it's a living hell...

I listen to the Seers and scroll through socials. It's the day after Martin Luther King Jr Day. A day that since Regan’s office has been marked as a US federal holiday. Jeanne Theoharis - who's has spent decades interrogating the myths we tell about one of the most recognisable civil rights activists - reminds us, injustice is comfortable for too many people. Silence permits cruelty. Comfort begets control.

A legacy that may have at times become flattened into a dreamy utopia, with King upheld as a non-threatening ‘colourblind’ figure. This isn’t accidental. It reassures the status quo and eliminates discomfort, to uphold politeness at the expense of justice.

The removal of free national parks on MLK Day and Juneteeth may serve as a reminder of King’s rage at economic and health injustice, his clarity about power and the complicity of politeness. His insistence that financial and political imbalances block true democracy if not robustly challenged. Politeness + comfort ≠ change.

Back in Bristol, I read a newsletter from Curiosity UnLtd who's Creativist leader Julz Davis been driving a campaign for Bristol to celebrate it’s role as Home of Civil Rights in the UK. Recognition of Bristol as a city of changemakers not waiting for permission and making their own opportunities.

That's the spirit of Bristol that matters. Not as branding, but as a way of being and just getting on with stuff. Because waiting for permission is another form of comfort. And comfort is what shrinks our minds and our worlds.

Art doesn’t decorate movements. It sustains them, says Julz. Creativity that's about truth-telling and shining a light on injustice where regular discourse falls short. A culture of asking difficult questions whilst also celebrating joyously that helps us imagine the ancestors we want to be and the role we want to plan in the world we’ll eventually leave behind.

We’re all frogs in the pot. Going along with process because we’re all so deep in it. Accepting the terms. Competing for funds like City of Culture and Pride in Place. A window of opportunity, but a window nonetheless that risks creating a sense of scarcity and of pitting places and communities against each other for central government funding, even though we know culture is a public good and civic life is essential to all of us. Without addressing that power of how we consider and distribute resources, participation is theatre not justice.

I want to shout but I can’t make a sound
Without the whole town coming down
There’s no-one around
I can’t dance, I can’t sing, I can’t do anything
Welcome to deadtown

The song continues as I read social posts asking so what...what can culture do about all that? These things tend to be gravy trains for a few. It will make no difference to most of us. This can be true, but that does not mean that we should not at least try.

That's the challenge of a UK City of Culture year for Bristol and we must take up that challenge if the benefits are to be felt. Bristol, like the UK doesn't lack creativity and is seen to be comparatively culturally resourced. But this hides more complex narratives, not least that we have a creative workforce that delivers far beyond the city's geographical boundaries, working across the UK on major cultural commissions and festivals, including playing visible roles in the delivery of City of Culture programmes in other UK cities.

And yet still we're a city whose networks can feel opaque and decision-making spaces unreachable. Systems that aren’t designed to make space for the art of the possible. People are muted. Expression is risky. Joy is rationed.

On the flipside, culture is passion. It’s activism. It’s identity. It's a shared memory. It’s the space where difficult conversations can happen - not as abstract debates, but as continued deliberation - a relay race passing the baton onto the next generation to build from where we tried and got some stuff right but still have work to do. Culture doesn’t change the world on its own: it creates the conditions for change. In a sea of voices telling us what to think and who’s right and who’s wrong it gives us a moment to close our eyes and hear our own voice and a tool to convert that voice into action to take about what matters to us.

The real test isn’t whether the whole city agrees or disagrees that we should go for this. It’s whether we stay in the room when things start to get uncomfortable - or even show up in the room when we’re invited. Discomfort isn’t the enemy - it's possibility. Talking to someone you disagree with and softening our edges. Taking a chance on a new artwork and seeing the world through a different lens. Speaking to a stranger and learning something new. Letting your certainty wobble to bring a skip to your step.

New worlds are built from shared courage. We don’t have to have all the answers right now. That’s why it’s called work. Believe in this. Believe in us. We’re all we’ve got. We’re our best chance. The work that needs doing will only come from us, together - locally and globally - communities refusing silence, complicity, refusing the polite status quo.

Shout in support of Bristol UK City of Culture. Shout in disagreement. Shout from the rooftops. It’s our time to bring our global town alive. Let’s go dream big.

This is an opinion piece by Emma Harvey. Click here to read more about Bristol's UK City of Culture bid.

Field Notes from across the UK’s community asset sector

We’re Right Here’s Gallery of Broken Dreams is a powerful exhibition highlighting the loss of cherished community spaces across the UK. Since 2015, we've lost over 75,000 community, cultural and civic assets as local authorities have sold-off spaces to plug gaps in their revenue budgets.

It's a bit of a sorry story. But, there are people working across the country to try to stem that tide and save our spaces.

These community and cultural champions are uniting threads across our divisions and weaving them into a new tapestry. They're telling different stories to the ones we’re told to believe. They're overcoming individualism, choosing instead to inspire collective ways of meeting and making change. They're not waiting to be invited, instead using their convening and connecting power to gain credibility and klout.

They're making, not just measuring, impact. They're showing us that joy is a right, not a privilege. They're building models that are sustainable, not extractive. They're quietly, over time, eroding the barriers that force us to fear and fight amongst ourselves. They're showing us what good and fair health, housing and social outcomes could look like for all of us.

They are, each day, curating different way of being - for the good of each and every one of us.

This Field Notes series features just some of the inspiring stories from across the country who form part of a much wider Mycelial Network of Community Asset Developers; local leaders who are transforming the civic and social landscape of the UK from the ground up.

With the Government's Pride In Place: Impact Fund just announced and the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill on the horizon - set to give communities increased powers to purchase the shared land under our feet - we hope these stories will serve as inspiration for communities and a powerful reminder that saving ourselves is possible; but that it involves all of us – right now.

What you can do to help

- Amplify these stories across your networks; tell these stories over dinner, listen to the podcast with family and friends

- Share other stories like these in this spirit; you can make your own Field Notes postcard here

- Join a community, civic or cultural organisation in your area and be part of a movement for change

- Read about other people working in this space here as part of the We're Right Here campaign

#BuildCommunities #CommunityEmpowerment #SaveOurSpaces #SoldFromUnderYou #MycelialNetwork #CADFieldNotes #PrideinPlace

2008 Dice Project, led by the wonderful community activist, Paulette North

“When people feel proud of where they live, trust grows. Community empowerment can be an antidote to riots, populism, and the void between people and politics.” Power to Change

It’s been hard to miss rising tensions across the UK, including in Epping near my home town of Harlow. Speaking to Sky News, some of those protesting said they feel afraid and want fairness. This is “a fight for survival,” one interviewee laments, though refugees and asylum seekers make up less than 2% of the UK population.

A sleight of hand diverts attention from the real causes of health, housing and social mobility inequity, serving the interests of affluent, monocultural influencers who benefit from sustaining division. Musk live streams in with his hot take. Rylan’s already chimed in with his two-pence. Unpicking this will not be easy.

We need only look to the US to see how there are forces that manipulate the strength of feeling of those already feeling overlooked for their own gain. Shame does little to counter and instead fuels a belief that we – the politicians, decision-makers, experts, liberal elite and ruling classes – do not care.

It’s easy to dismiss people as uneducated or ignorant as our gaze is drawn toward communities where asylum seekers are placed in hotels or dispersed without adequate care or support. Challenges that echo Gordon Brown’s ‘Bigotgate’ drive those disenfranchised for generations further toward those who affirm their views and stoke their fears – even where there is little to no promise of improvement to their current circumstances.

“It looks quite pretty”, says my mum, about the St George’s flags that have popped up in and around my home town, missing how this symbol of belonging ‘others’. A shift reminiscent of a Buddhist symbol that once stood for good fortune and prosperity that has since become synonymous with oppression and hate. A reminder that our symbols, like our identities, are subjective, contextual and in constant flux; a negotiation between us and the rest of the world.

As the Sky News interviewee tears up imagining their WWII fighting relative turning in their grave at the thought of the erosion of this once great nation, I read a WhatsApp from my sister; her friends in Epping describing anti-migration protesters as “awful,” and a summer of church services being cancelled because residents feel too fearful of those purportedly defending British values.

We try to reason that, “migrants do the jobs we won’t”, meant as a defence and reinforcing a hierarchy where migrants are only welcome if they serve us. A statement offered by those distant from those working class communities who traditionally wiped the bums of this once great nation.

We point to our individual and collective role in the climate crisis as a catalyst for global migration, as local volunteers are left to clear the rubbish scattered around hotels and fields after protesters from both sides have long gone home.

We argue our country has caused wars and displacement as if this will resonate with those who have given up on voting a long time ago because, as my dad puts it, “they’re all as bad as each other”.

From wars to wages to the shape of our neighbourhoods, “you have to join a protest to try to get the government to listen to you”, is a statement shared across a political spectrum increasing devoid of nuance. Voices speaking of “protecting women and children” as they terrify that same demographic who have no where else to go. Voices of those labelling anyone anxious about what change outside their control means for them as “far right”. Voices leading the charge on either side framing themselves as either safeguarding from invaders or resisting Nazi scum, emboldening others to join them.

If we expect people to care about our complicity in wars, climate change and other global crises driving migration we cannot keep debating in the abstract or from opposite sides of the picket line. We must neither underestimate the unfair burden on those most harmed by prejudice, nor the power we hand to bad actors when we dismiss the concerns of whose energies right now are misapplied.

To realise something better, we have to find unharmful ways to connect and amplify the voices that matter most – both those migrating to the UK to contribute to our economy or seek refuge and the communities they join. We must make space to sit down, talk openly and be honest if we want a solution that sticks. With the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill moving forward through Parliament - the first time the word ‘empowerment’ has ever appeared in the title of a bill - the hope is increasing rights of communities to shape their neighbourhoods may just be the antidote to this social fragmentation.

“Once called ‘cohesion,’ revisiting it could be exactly what we need!”, I thought, as I reminisced one of my first projects at Trinity, the ‘Dice Project’ with Bristol’s City Academy. It brought together older people and children from refugee and asylum communities during a time of growing local tensions. Watching the film of it back, I’m not gonna pretend it changed the world.

But without efforts like it, we can’t be surprised by the results we’re now seeing across UK communities of today who are being left to figure it out for themselves. “I was surprised at the pictures the children drew around the wall. It just opened my eyes again to not judging”, said one older participant from a project that no longer exists, that was funded by a fund that no longer exists and filmed for a community TV channel that no longer exists.

One interaction, one conversation, may not fix all our problems. But, over time, many interactions and continued conversations might just help to soften our edges. “Now we can respect to all people [sic]. No ‘younger people is good, older people is bad’. All people is nice. We must try and be friendly,” said one of the younger project members, who will by now be adulting in a society where we call for consent in our online spaces and bypass it when shaping the streets we live on.

This film about a long-forgotten project plays in a country in which our differences are gamified in a deliberate move by those who stand to profit politically from those with beef misdirected, countered by those leading the charge for Community Empowerment with punitive measures against migrants in a bid to nullify hostility, feeding the narrative that migration is the problem. In a world where we focus resources and efforts on the big issues from defence and health to the environment, while leaving the social fabric needed to deliver real and lasting solutions for our communities to chance. This is perhaps the greatest of all our migration crimes.

As I reach the end of that film of a cohesion project from almost 20 years ago, tying to find something to help us here in the now, one young voice shares a final thought; “‘I’ve learnt that not all Elders are boring”.

It’s not much. But it’s a start.

This is an opinion piece by Emma Harvey, CEO

Interested in finding out more about the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill? Click here to read this New Statesman article featuring Josh Westerling from Power to Change and Sacha Bedding from the We’re Right Here campaign.

Justice4Judah campaign launch at the Kuumba Centre, 2017 ©MarkSimmons

We Dream, They Rule: The Curious Case of Kuumba and the Call for Civic Change

"The relationship can’t be one of a parent and child that moves from the paternalistic to the parasitic, where we're ready to bur n it all to the ground when things go wrong. Instead, it needs to be symbiotic and reciprocal: a partnership where communities and institutions share responsibility, through both sunshine and rain." Anon

This week, a civil ruling found in favour of the management committee of the St Pauls-based Kuumba Centre, leaving the challenger and asset owners Bristol City Council red-faced and out of pocket.

The case highlights the complexities of managing community organisations and civic infrastructure. It sits against the national backdrop of We’re Right Here’s latest call to action: the Museum of Broken Dreams exhibition, which will bring to Parliament stories of community-led projects that could have transformed lives but were held back by bureaucracy and inflexible systems.

On the one hand, the judge’s decision to recognise the Kuumba committee as trustees can be seen as a win for the people; affirming the group’s legitimacy as those entrusted with the building’s guardianship. On the other, with that recognition comes the full weight of trustee-like duties, including accountability for how the site is managed and the consequences if it falls short. The ruling is both an important validation of community asset management and a reminder of the risks involved with safe and effective stewardship .

With councils across the UK unable and unwilling to manage buildings like these, it is left to volunteer groups who may lack the resources to deliver against expectations of communities and statutory bodies over time.

Accountability matters, but there is often a disconnect between what is expected vs what is realistic and achievable from all parties. Faced with perpetual scrutiny, community groups must work at pace to meet expectations around good governance, stable finances and impactful delivery, moving buckets to catch leaks, metaphorically and literally.

We all want well managed civic infrastructure that meets community needs and isn’t a burden on the public purse; the issue is how? How do we get what everyone wants? News flash. We can’t. Someone will always have to pay.

Councils pay. I am sure no one got into public service to take buildings off people. But with policies outdated, mechanisms slow, and processes inconsistent and overly bureaucratic, attempts to eliminate risk end up undermining the very community resilience we’d hope under-resourced administrations might want to support.

When funding is needed at the start of a project it’s rarely available. By the time things reach crisis point, funds are inevitably found and responses become heavy-handed, adversarial, and costly. Buildings sit in limbo and it’s not even clear who’s even responsible for figuring out what to do next. We always pay.

Communities pay. What starts out for most as a vision for something better. But anyone who has served on a community board knows that the realities are far more treacherous. From my earlier days in Bristol to some more recent experiences, the well-intentioned actions of those who want the best for their building can, over time, descend into disputes, factions and bitter rivalries.

Ineffective governance mechanisms chew up and spit out most, leaving spaces in the hands of a die-hard few who struggle under the cumulative effects of this way of working. Over time, this takes a toll: assets gradually decline, opportunities to make things better are missed and the goodwill that could’ve gone into building vibrant, thriving spaces is depleted. Nobody wins.  

And we pay. As we watch community leaders working tirelessly to keep buildings going, patching problems, navigating risk and jumping through hoops, we demand they do it backwards with high heels on. While councils struggle to balance budgets and meet statutory obligations, we shout, make FOI requests, caricature officers as the enemy, and treat capacity as an abstract concept rather than something finite and human.

The burden is on them surely, not us? We cry out for a fix as another building falls. We lament as problems that could have been solved with thousands escalate to millions. Our paternal government may dream up the latest national scheme funded by our taxes while we wait for it all to be put right by anyone by us. We walk past another boarded up space. Waiting. Wondering. In the end, we always pay.

As one trusted peer puts it, "If we all pay in the end, then what’s our responsibility as communities? It’s not enough to be passive recipients. The relationship can’t be one of a parent and child that moves from the paternalistic to the parasitic, where we're ready to burn it all to the ground when things go wrong. Instead, it needs to be symbiotic and reciprocal: a partnership where communities and institutions share responsibility, through both sunshine and rain."

One size does not fit all. Every building, every neighbourhood, every group has its own story and reality. And because of that messy pluralism this means mistakes, failure, metamorphosis, rebirth. If the goal is to protect and sustain these vital spaces, we need a different approach. One rooted in partnership, trust and dialogue.

This isn’t just a Bristol issue. At its heart, it is about how we structure and what we expect from our public services: How do we find funds over time to sustain the long-term frameworks needed for communities to take on – and keep hold of – the land beneath our feet? How can we accept failure within that model, so that scrutiny needed today isn’t a barrier for anyone taking a chance on something akin to it tomorrow? Without wholesale change in both structure and expectations, every transfer is a sticking-plaster and any success in the now risks being a problem in the future as the world changes and we can’t keep up. In this, we are all vulnerable.

It’s time to stop upholding systems not designed with us in mind and instead commit to a new way of collaborative, forgiving, human centric thinking that allows our civic and cultural spaces to thrive.

This starts with us. All of us.

This is an opinion piece by Emma Harvey, CEO

What you can do

Locally Support Bristol’s Roots of Resilience campaign - a network of Community Asset Organisations calling for a new framework: one that recognises the value of community assets not as liabilities on a balance sheet and places the council and communities as equitable partners in protecting our assets for the future. Write to your Councillor to ask them to support our recommendations.

Nationally Support We’re Right Here’s Museum of Broken Dreams campaign – they are asking you to write to your MP to invite them to an exhibition of community projects failed by bureaucracy and inflexible systems to coincide with the second reading of the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill. It is a last push for legislation that would shift power to local people and give communities the frameworks they need to take on and sustain vital assets.

Newtown mural making, image by Alistair Brookes

Why the route to reconnecting with audiences (and voters) might include citizens assemblies

This week, the National Gallery announced their new five-year plan to embed a citizens assembly as part of their decision making structure. This was followed by Melanie McDonagh’s Evening Standard piece (swiftly edited but originally titled, I'm sorry, but plebs shouldn't be curating the National Gallery) making the case for the Gallery’s direction to continue to be decided - as it has been for the best part of two centuries - by the appointed experts who know and care about art and who know what it is they want the rest of us to engage with.

Scepticism about the unfamiliar is expected. When Citizens for Culture started with a notion to embed citizen decision making in cultural strategic thinking in The West of England Region, I was both optimistic and wary. As we embarked on a citizen-led design stage, I expected to meet a bunch of citicynics wondering why we were asking them about culture when - from cost of living to global conflict - there were bigger fish to fry. I was instead met with engaged thoughtfulness and a unique bredth of cultural perspective that reinvigorated my enthusiasm about what a citizens assembly could offer to the arts.

It is not news to anyone that our sector is in crisis. Costs have gone up whilst funding has, at best for many, remained static. With public sector investment declining as statutory obligations grow, the UK's cultural sector once again grasps for an idea of sustainability that moves ever further from reach.

People more used to getting their voices heard may want to keep things as they were, but business as usual is no longer an option. Post-pandemic visitor numbers are down as curators scratch their heads wondering why their engagement team have failed to get the bums on their seats. Decolonising themes intended to reach diverse audiences can miss the mark if they only retell old stories through old structures.

Just as our traditional two party politicking needs a rethink, so too do the structures that underpin our creative industries that - as well as many other key industries from the civil service to our judicial system - are significantly lacking in working-class representation.

Columnists with platforms may have no interest in taking part, but that sentiment is not shared. Polling of Reform voters shows replacing the House of Lords with a citizens assembly would increase their trust in politics. With visitor numbers for many cultural institutions failing to pick back up to pre-pandemic levels, ignoring us plebs is costly.

Consulting communities can miss the mark either because the right questions weren’t asked or space was not made for unexpected answers. Yes, we’re all biased and opinionated. We're also your audiences, your electorate your customers and (hopefully) your future employees. The more we cling to decision making models that don’t account for that spectrum of voice and opinion, the more we'll continue to decline.

Assemblies may not give us all the answers, but they allow for deeper conversations about who we are and how we want to be governed, washed or unwashed. In a global network of online communities and distributed narratives, they can help to covert that which is reductive and disperate into a shared course of action, that gives us at least that bit of hope to catalyse change.

This is the model pioneered by Nottingham’s New Art Exchange, which has shifted the balance of power from one that is top down to one where their citizens assembly embedded in their structural governance. Participation isn’t forced. It is paid. Assembly members aren’t expected to replace the expertise of staff. They’re there to bring relevancy and meaning, with a board that continues to govern risk and a creative, curatorial crew who bring their relevant skills and specialisms to convert, elevate and actualise ideas. Artistic expertise isn’t being superseded, it's being enhanced through the power of that collective lens.

The UK’s spectrum of heritage, identity and opinion is so broad, the idea that any one person could curate that in isolation is for the dinosaurs. Deciding together might feel messy but, as the models we know are failing us, assemblies give us a way to realise a kaleidoscope of possibility. We have an opportunity to start that decision making process from a different point, even if we’re not sure where we might end up. Will citizens assemblies solve our problems? I don’t know. I do know in an era of decentralised content and political discontent we are both our own curators and our best advocates.

We ignore that at our peril.

This is a personal opinion piece by Emma Harvey

Podcast: How to Save a Community Building – Insights from Trinity’s CEO Emma Harvey

How do you bring a historic community building back into public hands? In this insightful podcast episode, Emma Harvey, CEO of Trinity in Bristol, shares a step-by-step account of what it really takes to save a civic asset; drawing on her leadership in the campaign to revive Jacobs Wells Baths.

From launching capital campaigns to navigating complex asset transfers, Emma breaks down the practical, political, and emotional aspects of community ownership. The conversation explores:

• Why community buildings matter — and what we lose when they're gone

• How to build grassroots support and conduct meaningful local consultation

• The value of phased fundraising and realistic feasibility studies

• The role of local authorities, funders, and national policy in supporting asset transfer

• Lessons learned and advice for others facing similar battles

Whether you're a community organiser, policymaker, or curious citizen, this episode is packed with knowledge, encouragement, and a clear-eyed look at what it takes to protect the spaces that matter.

🕒 Runtime: ~50 minutes
📍 Featuring: Emma Harvey, CEO of Trinity, Bristol and Priyanka Raval, Editor, Bristol Cable

If you liked this you can also listed to our BBC interview here.

John Parish & Adrian Utley supporting Trinity's #Notes4Notes campaign, 2013

The battle over who gets a say about the land under our feet is a tale as age-old as Robin Hood.

As the housing crisis shows no sign of letting up, this can mask the much wider picture of what it truly means to build sustainable, thriving neighbourhoods where people want to carve out lives. Despite the government’s stated commitment to community empowerment, the closure of the Community Ownership Fund (COF) marks a significant setback leaving the future of community-led asset ownership uncertain.

Even with schemes like COF, the task of taking on a building is one with many obstacles. In England’s fight for community spaces, the Asset of Community Value (ACV) system, while noble in its intention, offers little protection against the weight of market forces. Unlike Scotland’s Community Right to Buy, which grants legal power to force a sale to qualifying community interest groups, England’s system merely offers a temporary pause on commercial disposal, with no obligation placed on asset owners to prioritise community buyers.

This leaves communities having to balance professionalism needed to lever required funds whilst simultaneously growing noisy public campaigns to put of other buyers. If they’re in no rush to sell, the owner will simply wait for the six-month moratorium to lapse before proceeding with sale to the highest bidder, as with Coexist’s campaign to save Hamilton House. Even where groups manage to raise substantial funds and deliver successful public campaign, efforts can be swept aside in a heartbeat by a developer with deeper pockets.

There is marginally greater hope when a building is owned by a Local Authority, where campaigners can cite continued social value. However, securing a community asset transfer can be challenging in the current context with councils under pressure to balance deficit budgets. The temptation of commercial disposal can be hard to resist.

Keeping buildings in public ownership is one of the biggest challenges. Many councils are eager for a quick exit from liabilities such as their expensive portfolio of rapidly dilapidating buildings. By the time an asset reaches a state of severe disrepair, disposal becomes the only logical option; a short-term fix that plugs a budget gap at the expense of long-term social, economic, and health benefits.

People think of the legend of Robin Hood as a story of outlaws robbing the rich, but at its core, it is a tale of defiance against this type of land-based power. The struggle to protect or reclaim what belongs to the people – whether it’s indigenous land reclamation struggles against tech giants mining for precious minerals, tenant unions resisting evictions and rent hikes, community land trusts securing affordable housing, local campaigns fighting to save a building on their doorstep, or even Greenland telling Trump “no means no” – is a narrative deeply rooted in our human condition, local to global.

In this latest telling of the story, we’re not just saving buildings. We’re saving ourselves. Every step we take to save a space is an act of political defiance, challenging the systems that concentrate land and wealth in fewer hands. Community management of buildings unlocks external funding, supports local well-being, and keeps spaces in public hands. It is in these everyday battles to save our spaces that the greatest transformations are forged, proving that resilience, solidarity, and vision to reshape a future in which communities work together to solve some of our shared problems.

Like Robin Hood’s battle against feudal land grabs, the movement for community ownership is about more than individual buildings, it’s about reshaping an entire system. If we only defend one asset at a time, we won’t keep up with the pace of change and we’ll fail to address the structural inequality that means some the odds are stacked against some more than others. Instead, we must challenge the structures that keep land and power concentrated among the few.

Rather than accepting when our decision-makers tell us the cupboards are bare, we need to all be asking more questions of our elected representatives to demand greater transparency around how we’re making best us of the resources we do have. The question isn’t just: How can we save this building? It’s: How can we reclaim control over the places that shape our lives, for the good of all of us?

Opinion piece written by Emma Harvey, CEO

How to help

Register a building as an Asset of Community Value (ACV); this gives your community the right to bid for it if it's put up for sale, helping to protect important local spaces from unwanted development or loss.

Read about our Roots of Resilience campaign; show your support by contacting your Local Councillor to tell them about the importance of civic and cultural spaces in your neighbourhood.

Nominate a building to be listed as a heritage asset; care about the future of a historic place you know and love? Anyone can recommend a building, site, monument, designed landscape, battlefield or wreck site for inclusion on the National Heritage List for England (NHLE).

Write to your MP to call for a UK-wide "Community Right to Buy" to enable communities to take ownership of local assets, along with other measures like a new flexible Community Ownership Fund and support for community businesses to help combat structural inequity in asset management.

...and don't forget to VOTE 1st May! The West of England Mayor has the power to shape investment in civic and cultural infrastructure across the region. This election is a crucial chance to ensure decisions are made that benefit all of us. Don't forget to use your power to vote and make sure you ask your candidates what will they do to ensure investment reaches local communities so they can take on and develop vital community assets.

Resources

Ask your local Councillor:

1. How is the council prioritizsng and funding investment in community assets, and what opportunities exist for community partnerships or asset transfers?
2. Are there underused or surplus council properties that could be repurposed for community benefit, and what funding mechanisms (e.g., CIL, Section 106) can be utlised to better support this model?

Ask your local MP:

1. Will the government introduce stronger legal protections, such as a Right to Buy or compulsory purchase powers for communities, to prevent vital spaces from being lost to private development?
2. Will the government commit to establishing a dedicated, long-term funding programme like Scotland’s Land Fund, to better enable communities to protect the assets that matter to them?

Links:

Locality - Provides expert guidance and resources for community-led organizations to establish and sustain community assets.

My Community - Provides tools and advice for communities to take ownership of local assets and influence local decision-making.

Platform Places - Assists communities in repurposing vacant or underused buildings into vibrant community spaces.

Shared Assets - Offers support for managing land and buildings as sustainable community resources.

Stir to Action - Delivers training and workshops focused on social enterprise and community-led development.

The Plunkett Foundation - Supports rural communities in setting up and running community-owned businesses, including buildings.

Voscur - Offers support services for voluntary and community groups in Bristol, including guidance on managing community buildings.

#WECA #WestOfEngland #MyVoteMyVoice #UseYourVote

#CommunityPower #SaveOurSpaces #SoldFromUnderYou

We recently attended the Festival of Flourishing Regions 2025 (#FoFR2025).  The Festival aims to promote and celebrate the role that cities and regions play in the economy and prosperity of the country and look at how regions can drive the growth agenda of the government. Read Emma Harvey, CEO of Trinity Community Arts review of the event:

“At the heart of this week’s Festival of Flourishing Regions 2025 (#FoFR2025) at the Watershed was a recurring question: Who truly benefits from growth? Economic expansion and large-scale developments continue to bypass existing communities, leaving people clinging desperately to their sense of place, fearful of disruption. Nimby-naysayers, blocking our prosperity.

Bristol City Council leader Tony Dyer began with early reflections – and perhaps a warning – about the risks of growth without stability and prosperity without equity. He highlighted the need to shift toward preventative public services that operate proactively rather than merely reacting to crises. This was echoed by experiences of Stephen Peacock, the leader of the Combined Authority, who highlighted the real pressures of escalating expenditure on temporary accommodation hindering efforts to implement permanent solutions.

Palie Smart from the University of Bristol captured a key theme: The power of powerful relationships… only when we get together can we tackle complex challenges. But, how do we come together to build a vision for region that flourishes for us all when so many are paralysed by the continual threat of precariousness? As Andy Westwood surmised, people are putting more in than they’re getting out”. Why should any of us care about an empty promise of productivity when wealth accumulates at the top while wages stagnate in the middle and those at the bottom are propped up by a living wage that can’t keep pace with an out of control rental market? Why should  I care who’s in charge if power remains centralised and only deepens the majority’s sense of powerlessness? As Arrested Development’s lyrics go, the word ‘cope’ and the word ‘change’ is directly opposite, not the same.

"Citizens for Culture is an opportunity to do just that – in a region of rural and urban wealth and deprivation how do we build a shared identity, weaving and crafting an authentic narrative to define our place in the world." Emma Harvey

If we want real progress, we need to move beyond survival and towards meaningful transformation.

Iain Gray spoke about the need for innovation and the importance of setting clear priorities and pursuing them ruthlessly and talked fondly of memories of the 2012 Olympics. While many remember this fondly for artistic ceremonies celebrating the best of British culture, I can’t help but think about what that ruthlessness looked like in reality; the permanent loss of century-old  covenanted land, the Manor Gardens allotments. I think about that and wonder, more than a decade on, do people still feel the benefits of that cement walkway in the same way as the communal land it replaced?

This tension between social mobility, productivity and asset-based community development ran through many discussions. Harriet Fear touched on the power of new ideas in old buildings with an example of a startup thriving in a former pigsty. It was a reminder that we overlook the value of what we already have we lose those in unusual corners and crevices where minds connect, imaginations are ignited and ideas are formed.

From public infrastructure projects, the much lambasted HS2 to regional funding pots and the constant churn of central government infrastructure funding pots locked needlessly to short-term political cycles. That churn of out with the old in with the new. 14 growth strategies in 16 years. Yet here we are, no closer to a solution that works for everyone.

Jim O’Neill places some of that blame at the foot of the merciless 247 news cycle that reduces everything to 15 seconds of infamy. As does former Bristol Mayor Marvin Rees who talked of the toxic trolling limiting our ability to attract and keep people even wanting to work in a political space.

With so much focus on productivity centred around, aerospace, tech, and defence, what actually makes a city like Bristol ‘sticky’ place people want to call home? It’s all about food and friends and gigs and carnivals and sound systems and heritage, and culture and and and…yet if it wasn’t for Katy Shaw who said, “culture isn’t an add-on—it’s intrinsic to regional growth strategies”, you’d be forgiven for thinking our route to happier healthier lives could be delivered by chips and wings and missile nose cones.

When mulling over our collective lot, we can all be too good at talking about what we don’t have. The poverty of capacity, devolved funding for culture that still remains fragmented, or the challenges in land use, where freehold sites are given away for developments never realised. Using your powers wisely, has never been more important. This tied directly into our work with partners to deliver Roots of Resilience, which explores how community buildings can be leveraged by the voluntary sector to safeguard spaces, creating a holistic approach that blends the old with the new.

If we start from a place of what we do have – our wealth of talent, ideas skills, assets – as investment decisions shift to combined authorities – we can try to ensure that investment isn’t just about top-down economic development but enables communities to shape their own futures. As Nick Pearce spoke of the urgent need to structure deliberative democratic processes as part of these devolved regions – ensuring citizens have a direct say in how their regions evolve – I was bouncing out my seat ready to shout about our work to deliver the first regional Citizens’ Assembly for Culture, in September 2025 – giving people a stake in shaping the future of devolved investment in the creative and cultural industries.

In a fractured system where few understand how regional authorities operate, John Denham noted, rarely do we get a chance to sit down and ask, what do we have in common? Citizens for Culture is an opportunity to do just that – in a region of rural and urban wealth and deprivation how do we build a shared identity, weaving and crafting an authentic narrative to define our place in the world.

This isn’t about growth. It’s about betterment. Creating places where people can hope for more than just to survive. Where economic strategies don’t just serve a privileged few but create lasting, equitable prosperity.

The Festival of Flourishing Regions made it clear: the power to shape our future exists, but only if we have the courage to grab hold of it.”

Emma Harvey, CEO Trinity Community Arts

#FoFR2025

Me, way back when

Emma Harvey, Trinity CEO, shares her opinions on the underrepresentation of people from working class backgrounds in the arts

The cultural sector in the UK falls short on various measures of diversity and, starkly, fewer than one in 10 arts workers come from working-class backgrounds.

Being one of those one in 10, I can testify that people who sound and behave like me, or who share my cultural references are a rare species, particularly in leadership roles. One key reason for this is that success in the arts is often determined by access to established networks and the ability to leverage those connections to progress ideas, secure paid work and obtain funding.

One of my first funding applications for Trinity way back when was met with a rapturous response from the funder, who said they were excited to include us in their portfolio, but they wouldn’t be giving us any actual money. It was my first lesson in a long series of lessons: for Trinity – and me – to succeed, I would have to think differently about the game I was playing.

Over my time at Trinity, we’ve had to build trust with funders, proving that we are a ‘safe pair of hands’. This isn’t easy when you’re an uncompromising Essex bird who didn’t go to finishing school and (as my friend’s daughter once remarked), "looks like a teenager and talks like a young adult." While I took this as a compliment, it’s challenging when people expect leaders to look, sound and behave in a certain way. Like some wheeler-dealer Del Boy of the Bristol arts scene, it may sound sus to some when I say it's all cushty.

One way to build that credibility is by ensuring match funding is already on the table. It’s a bit of a chicken-and-egg situation: many funders only want to join the party once it’s in full swing – few want to be the first to risk bringing the vibes. Match funding from independent funders is critical to securing larger investment, particularly capital. The journey to raise all the funds needed to deliver community arts programmes or ambitious capital plans often feels like a convoluted, muddled process that relies as much on luck, sheer hard work and stubborn persistence as it does on strategy – it’s like a form of alchemy with plenty of nos along the way.

Uncredibles have to build our reputation and networks over a considerable number of years, seeing through many political cycles where officers and leaders change, meaning you have to start the conversation all over again. This at least is slightly more straight-forward in “Bristol village”, where the arts sector is relatively static. So, if like me you have the staying power then, over time, you can build trust and a track record. To this end, we’ve been hugely helped by independent funders who have placed their faith in our grand designs. Local funders like Nisbet Trust, a family charity that has been instrumental in advancing our programmes for children and young people, as well as our bold if not daunting work to save Jacobs Wells Baths. Also national funders like Historic England, who have also supported us with repairs on both of our publicly owned buildings, helping us build the match funds needed to unlock larger grant support from Lottery and other public bodies.

Despite the wins for the city, the narrative is so often negative. Instead of celebrating that Jacobs Wells Baths as a publicly owned building has been saved from commercial disposal it’s, "How did they get given that building?". Instead of joy in the building a cultural alliance that brings arts into three primary schools, the question is, “Why are they getting that funding?" And me? Well, I’m often described to my face as “a force of nature”, “someone who gets things done” and “a blunt tool”. It makes one wonder what people say when I’m not in the room. Maybe that’s why, even after all this time, I still find myself as the gatecrasher at one culture sector network event or the other.

This stuff only reinforces the purpose of Trinity’s work to democratise the arts and level our cultural worth. When we ask questions or make statements like these, what we’re really saying that the efforts of working-class people don’t matter because – whether by intent, complacency, or design – ultimately, we’re playing a game that we were never supposed to be on the board for, let alone have a chance of winning at.

That’s why people need to sit at the heart of cultural decision-making. Decisions about who gets what and where shouldn’t be made through closed-door deals by politicians, officers, cultural leaders and CEOs. Groups of people who may not live or work in the area, who don’t have real skin in the game or who like me (shock horror) will never ever ever be a real Bristolian.

Power like this should be placed with citizens.

Because when we talk about culture, what we’re really talking about who gets to express themselves freely, whose voices get heard and whose stories get told. That’s why I do what I do at Trinity. I want more voices, more diversity and more perspectives to bubble to the surface. And that means not just a room full of people who look different and all nod in agreement. I want people who challenge one other, who hold diametrically opposing views, from different faiths and conflicting political leanings. A bunch of folk who can come together and find common ground through shared values, like freedom of expression, respect and that culture, when done right, can be good for all of us – for our health, socially and economically. If we’re able to that, then we might just find a way to build a collective UK cultural identity that speaks of all of us.

So, that’s my story. Tell it, or tell someone else's. It’s up to you, not me after all.

This is an opinon piece by Emma Harvey, CEO

At Trinity, families from across our surrounding neighbourhoods come together. Children create paintings reflecting their diverse heritages. They sing nursery rhymes in different languages. The UK I see each day is not the divided one that manifested this weekend. It’s a place where people connect and foster relationships, bridging our diverse pasts within our shared present.

To suggest multiculturalism is something we tried and can simply undo is a particular form of dishonesty. Whether you like it or not, our towns and cities will only become more diverse so we must find ways to rub up against each other in less painful ways.

Multiculturalism isn’t a problem, but it’s also not a Benetton ad. Trinity’s charitable purpose is to promote racial harmony by encouraging equality of opportunity and good relations between people of different racial and cultural identities, and by facilitating multicultural activities. This isn’t just because it’s great fun, but because cohesion isn’t incidental. It requires work, spaces and resources, which are in short supply as counties, councils and communities go broke.

As the world changes around us in quicker and bolder ways, demographic profiles will continue to shift. Connecting online or in spaces with those who only nod in agreement makes seeing the world through a different lens all the harder.

Anchor hubs, community halls, neighbourhood pubs, historical sites and cultural institutions can offer an antidote; providing a familiar backdrop for existing communities while welcoming new ones. But rapid redevelopment, rising costs and pressures on sustaining statutory services are placing pressures on councils – often the legacy owners of a portfolio of our civic, cultural and heritage assets – to sell off the spaces that underpin our social fabric. Meanwhile, the decline of high streets has slowed growth and depleted local offerings that were once the foundation of an area’s cultural identity. If we no longer have places to drink tea and eat biscuits together, this creates a feeling of loss and defensiveness of 'us' that compounds fears of 'them'.

The sleight of hand being played is, while attention is diverted to small boats, the real threat – unregulated speculative land investment and inadequate community land control – continues to rob us of what’s ours. The response is a growing movement of local and national networks battling to save our spaces. While there are success stories, many of these campaigns struggle due to a lack of resources, experience and long-term support. Cash talks meaning it can be difficult to compete against the pressure on local authorities to dispose of assets at a commercial rate to balance budgets. Unlocking decisions and funding to protect these assets often hinges on political cycles, party policies and slogans that feel beyond our influence. This means, for every success story, we’re still losing more than we’re saving.

If we want to make things better for everyone, we must find a way to value societal well-being and sustainable development as much as, if not more than, the economic value of the ground under our feet. We can call in the army, increase police resources and regulate online spaces. But, if we want to see less of what happened this weekend, we must engage in the national conversation about the systemic issues behind such events and address how we provide vital civic infrastructure for a population that will only continue to grow in density and diversity.

The decisions we make now shape the story we tell about ourselves to future generations. At Trinity, we push the boundaries of a building constructed by people who could never have imagined the ways we use the space today. This space, built without us in mind, requires us to find ways to resource it for the future while accepting that we can’t predict what tomorrow holds or control who gets to be part of that.

Communities, times and places change. Once disparate cultural threads intertwine, shaping the ancestors we become. The fringe becomes the ordinary, the dinosaur, the dust. In a world of polarisation, fear, and uncertainty, these are the spaces (as our Edson says) that allow us to curate a different way of being, resonating with our shared past and shaping a more resilient and culturally vibrant future.

Right now, these spaces are more vital than ever.

#RadicalInclusion

This is an opinion piece by Emma Harvey

Jacobs Wells Baths - Image Credit: Sam Prosser

Preserving and maintaining community spaces is proving increasingly difficult as local authorities grapple with continued budgetary pressures. Some local authorities are facing or have already issued Section 114 notices – which means expected income isn’t enough to cover expenditure. In response, the Government is considering making it easier for councils to dispose of publicly owned assets to cover rising costs of essential services. Financial news provider, Bloomberg, sets out how, “The move would mark a sharp relaxation of the current constraints, which prevent councils from using money from asset sales to meet budget pressures from day-to-day services without approval from the central government.”

"The choices we make now in response to the challenge of preserving civic and cultural infrastructure in the face of financial uncertainty is a decision that will have lasting consequences for future generations" Emma Harvey

Community groups and charities are collaborating to devise shared solutions to protect civic and cultural assets from disposal and loss; from volunteering to manage local allotments and raising money to invest in parks and play areas, to taking on ownership of local pubs or community buildings and developing their own Neighbourhood Plans.

Whilst there are individual success stories of spaces saved, the challenge lies in how we create a national community asset transfer approach that is replicable, scalable and sustainable. As Brendan Conway, a leading voice in community assets, sets out in a LinkedIn post at the start of the year; “we must not valorise small precedents that have hidden foundations and assume that they are replicable.”

The current model places communities under increasing pressure to do more, though they may not equally hold all the necessary resources to convert short-term passion into sustained success. Existing funding schemes tied to short-term political cycles overlook the complexities of such projects, which require a variety of factors to align. Passionate people who care will inevitably overcommit and inexperienced individuals will underestimate what’s necessary to sustain a recovery effort over time. Some communities may hold the aspiration, but struggle to channel the right energy, investment or efforts consistently and continually. Others may just be overwhelmed, fatigued, or disheartened from past failed efforts to save the things they’ve loved and lost. This could lead to an increasingly disproportionate distribution of social resources, unless we proactively lay the foundations required to enhance success rates equitably across the breadth of UK communities.

The solution as to how we preserve civic and cultural infrastructure amidst financial uncertainty requires a nuanced, adaptable and holistic approach. It’s a delicate balancing act that, if we fail to get right, will leave our communities of tomorrow without the infrastructure they need to allow our more diverse, more densely populated neighbourhoods to function. The more we embark on these ambitious, quirky, complex projects, the more we will see projects fail. Should sites revert back to local authority control at a point where resources and capacity has further depleted, this will only compound risk of future asset disposal, not least because now one might also point to how the community tried, but failed to make it work.

In Bristol, there are a number of organisations driving a community ownership movement and a more strategic approach to community asset management, such as Bristol’s Community Anchor Network who have launched a manifesto to ask for more targeted support and investment to protect the city’s social fabric. More widely, Platform Places are collaborating with councils, community asset managers and owners to repurpose vacant high street properties, whilst Locality are continuing to promote their #SaveOurSpaces campaign by launching a new “community power revolution” to place more power in the hands of communities.

The choices we make now in response to the challenge of preserving civic and cultural infrastructure in the face of financial uncertainty is a decision that will have lasting consequences for future generations. To ensure a resilient and culturally vibrant future for UK communities expanding in diversity and population density, we must adopt a nuanced, bespoke and holistic approach to the assets that underpin our daily lives; one that embraces all the complexities, personalities and idiosyncrasies of our changing social and cultural landscape. And we need to do that pretty soon, before we have no space left to fight for.

Emma Harvey, CEO Trinity Community Arts

#SoldFromUnderYou

#SaveOurSpaces

About this article

• Trinity are committed to advocating for shared community and cultural spaces. We are members of Locality and are currently leading an appeal to restore Jacobs Wells Baths in Hotwells.
• Read our 100 Beacons report that shines a light on the importance of – and understand the risks posed to – Bristol's community and cultural assets.
• Read opinion piece "The preservation paradox: sell now, pay later"

Tide and Tales perform during Summer Stay and Play sessions. Photo credit: Alistair Brookes

Trinity CEO, Emma Harvey, reflects on the challenges facing Bristol arts in the context of the wider cuts to arts funding and the impact this has on limiting pathways into careers in the creative industries.

In December 2023, Bristol City Council (BCC) announced their decisions for the Cultural Investment Programme, awarding grants in principle to 15 organisations. This included Trinity, newly funded Unique Voice, and Travelling Light Theatre Company who recently lost their regular funding from Arts Council England. Also Acta, ASLS, Asian Arts Agency, Bristol Pride, Circomedia, CYN, KWMC, Paraorchestra, Rising Arts Agency, Spike Island, St Paul’s Carnival and the Tobacco Factory.

With nearly a 40% reduction in total funds compared to past rounds, 13 groups missed out on regular investment. This included previously funded groups Bristol Old Vic, Encounters, Exchange, IBT, MAYK, RWA, Saffron, St Georges, Trigger and Watershed, alongside new proposals from APE, SSGB and Wardrobe Theatre.

"Rather than sharpening our elbows to fight for the crumbs that fall from the table we should be Oliver Twisting it up and asking for more."

As testament to the sector’s precariousness, two long-standing arts organisations were listed as, “closed or closing so not considered for investment”. Those not selected have responded with concerns about the continued cost of living crisis reducing audience revenue alongside rising overheads placing pressures on finances. Cultural institutions traditionally seen as too big to fail are facing an uncertain future and all funding is still subject to annual approval. This continued uncertainty means we're all on a sinking ship, just at different points of an inescapable decline.

Successes and setbacks are all part of business as usual at Trinity. After almost 20 years the best I can say when someone asks if we'll be here in twelve months is, "hopefully". In the voluntary sector, survival is as good as it gets. Hearing frequent ‘Nos' then trying to work out what's next is part of the job. Competitive funding rounds linked to political cycles are perhaps the worst at breeding a "them and us" mindset, making organisations old and new, big and small go up against one another for ever decreasing funds. It creates a short-term focus and leads to over-commitment, particularly from those smaller, newer groups desperate to move from being “out” to “in” any funding portfolio round. It leads to an unrealistic emphasis on measuring the intangible that benefits no one and decreases our appetite for risk, stifling the very creativity we’re seeking to support.

Rather than sharpening our elbows to fight for the crumbs that fall from the table we should be Oliver Twisting it up and asking for more. Were BCC to fund all 30 organisations listed to the maximum annual grant amount of £30k per year, this would amount to the amount to less 2% of the city’s total annual revenue spend. With many administrations nationally issuing or on the verge of section 114 notices due to difficulties in delivering balanced budgets, this can make such a case for arts funding appear entitled and out of touch with the everyday suffering of many across the country. But cuts to arts funding are part of a wider narrative (see links, below) of reduced investment in the arts that deprives those without the means from carving out meaningful experiences and careers in the creative industries.

Arts can be an easy thing to cut in difficult times but we’re doing so to the detriment of those who benefit from its power most. There is an intrinsic value that’s accepted and widely evidenced. Art is good for us; our economy, our health, our sense of place and belonging. And yet, one of the wealthiest city's in one of the wealthiest countries globally can’t even resource the creativity that sits at the heart of our local identity.

Collaborating with three local primary schools, Trinity recognises the significance of early engagement with culture in igniting creative aspirations. Children locally and nationally have witnessed reduced access to arts education compounded by challenges stemming from the pandemic and the ongoing burden of cost of living limiting access to out of school activities.

The ongoing decline in arts investment nationwide results in a gradual erosion of our opportunities to engage with the arts, limiting our cultural pathways. As the voices shaping our shared narratives become fewer, the story of our national identity risks being conveyed through an ever narrowing lens. Over time, this reduces the chances for individuals without existing wealth and means to pursue meaningful careers in an industry that contributes billions to the UK's economy annually.

It is commendable that, for the time being at least, BCC have sought to protect what remains of their public subsidy for the sector and focus what resource it can with the aim of sustaining participatory arts provision within neighbourhoods. But if we really want to ensure everyone has the opportunity to access and make art we need to think of better ways to ensure the investment is felt beyond a handful of suspects, however usual or unusual.

Some of the most successful schemes to support arts and diversify the arts sector have come from creative co-option of back-to-work schemes, from Future Jobs Fund and the recent Kickstart Scheme, providing paid entry level roles for <25s, to Thatcher’s Enterprise Allowance, which enabled some of the UK’s most prolific cultural practitioners to carve out their early careers and saw the birth of Brit Art movement.

Some trusts and foundations are catching on and supporting organisations and creatives in new and flexible ways. As far as public subsidy goes, we’re fighting for a seat at a table where chairs are continually being taken out of the game. Who will secure the chair once the music stops? A more impactful path involves collaborative efforts to lay the foundations for fairer resource distribution. Let’s stop playing someone else’s game and tip the table over.

By Emma Harvey, CEO

Further reading:

Bristol City Council defends cultural venue funding cuts (BBC)

Restore Bristol arts funding! (Equity)

The arts are in crisis (Gal Dem)

Government urged to intervene over local arts cuts (Campaign For The Arts)

Funding cuts and weak economy send UK’s visual arts into crisis (The Art Newspaper)

How will art funding cuts in schools affect creativity? (It’s Nice That)

Huge decline of working class people in the arts reflects fall in wider society (Guardian)

Image credit: Visual Thinkery

This issue of our built environment and who shapes it is a local affair. Aside from exceptions such as the nefarious demolition of The Crooked House pub, campaigns rarely make national news. Headlines of collapsing schools, public sector strikes and unrelenting cost of living and housing crises can make preservation of our heritage and civic realm appear out of touch and NIMBYist.

"Amidst the minefield of regulations, funding shortfalls, and bureaucratic complexities, the neglect of our shared spaces carries profound implications for generations to come. We must move beyond a meritocracy model and the need to balance our short-term fiscal needs to take a duty of care over the long-term reimagining of a shared civic canvas on which to build our collective future."  Emma Harvey

Context is a cornerstone principle of the national planning framework, yet local authorities find the threat of an overturned decision and the resulting fines too risky at a time when 26 English councils risk of bankruptcy in the next two years [^1^]. Councils have powers to issue enforcement notices for urgent preservation or compulsory purchase of important, privately owned buildings. All too often though, it’s these same councils who are the reluctant custodians of our ageing social infrastructure.

We find ourselves trapped in an ongoing “estates rationalisation” exercise that deprives future generations of the shared spaces that shape the collective narratives of our communities. Research from the IPPR shows £15bn of publicly owned assets have been sold off since 2010. That’s 75,000 civic spaces, libraries, leisure centres, community halls and youth spaces lost. There is funding available to save them; £300 million DCMS Youth Investment Fund and £150 million DLUHC Community Ownership Fund. And yet it would appear only a fraction of these central government funds have been allocated.

These old, often listed, almost always complex buildings are in desperate need of investment after decades of cuts that have de-prioritised preventative preservation. This leaves such projects to save these spaces with an inherent messiness that is just to risky amidst continued rising costs of essential services. Such conditions make it almost impossible for all but a few fortuitous groups to lever funds to save the spaces we love.

While new laws have appeared to protect statues in the wake of the Colston statue's toppling, this protection seems to favour a type of politicised heritage storytelling, rather than building connections through our shared past. Our heritage spaces are being co-opted by those looking to control the narrative as exemplified by the recent case of the Restore Trust's bid to dominate the governance within the National Trust [^2^]. If those who control the present control the past and that past shapes our future, then the erosion of our stake and influence in shaping these narratives poses significant threat, especially if we continue to lose the spaces that allow us to make these stories our own.

The idea that we can only fix the roof whilst the sun is shining risks leaving us with no roofs at all under which to learn how to swim, to dance, to read, to make memories, connections and shared solutions to the problems facing us all. After a decade plus of political storms the ability to define heritage, own space and determine which assets should be preserved feels like a luxury. Distracted with the immediacy of our collective woes, the agendas of all but a few will define who we become.

Amidst the minefield of regulations, funding shortfalls, and bureaucratic complexities, the neglect of our shared spaces carries profound implications for generations to come. We must move beyond a meritocracy model and the need to balance our short-term fiscal needs to take a duty of care over the long-term reimagining of a shared civic canvas on which to build our collective future. Cost-saving solutions that fail to think beyond the current political cycle means we pay in perpetuity. Somewhere, in some form, we always pay.

Emma Harvey, CEO

About this article

Trinity are committed to advocating for shared community and cultural spaces. We are members of Locality and are currently leading an appeal to restore Jacobs Wells Baths in Hotwells.

Read our 100 Beacons report that shines a light on the importance of – and understand the risks posed to – Bristol's community and cultural assets.

[^1^]: The Guardian: "At least 26 English councils at risk of bankruptcy in next two years"

[^2^]: The Guardian: “Vote no to the thinktank pod people trying to body-snatch the National Trust”