Blackpool

Cultural strategy

A cultural strategy that gave Blackpool's cultural sector a stronger voice, and helped secure £700k of investment.

StrategyBlackpool

Blackpool's cultural sector described feeling overlooked and under-valued despite the destination's global profile. Blackpool needed empirical evidence to demonstrate the importance of culture. Local cultural leaders needed to develop a strong, collective voice to champion culture.

CTConsults designed a programme including a robust cultural and economic evidence review. To embed this new collaborative approach, we didn't author the strategy. Instead we mentored a local writing team from culture, education and place-making. An assessment of place partnerships and leadership led to a new model and Creative Blackpool being successfully launched.

The programme created a stronger shared narrative for culture, and improved the confidence of stakeholders. Our support of their Place Partnership bid helped to secure £700,000 to drive Creative Blackpool's plans forward.

“I can highly recommend CTConsults who worked with Blackpool's stakeholder group on a challenging brief. The process was tough at times for all involved and CTConsults kept the energy flowing and maintained task focus for the stakeholder group. The wealth of knowledge and expertise provided by CTConsults was critical to the successful delivery of the brief.”

— CEO, Blackpool BID

“CTConsults were able to expertly guide a wide variety of organisations and individuals with differing agendas to a focused discussion and agreed next steps and ultimately a collaborative cultural strategy.”

— Director, Creative Blackpool