Greater Brighton leaders look to boost £800m creative industries

Young people need help to find their way into work in the creative industries – a sector worth almost £800 million a year in the Greater Brighton area alone.

That was the message from a leading member of the Greater Brighton Economic Board which met in Worthing yesterday (Wednesday 22 October).

Worthing Borough Council leader Sophie Cox, said that building links with educators was crucial as was the government’s push to bring creative subjects back to the fore.

Councillor Cox said: “We need to push forward in this very inclusive area. We might have some young people who are not so strong at technical subjects.”

She said that it was important to “show them there is something for you in the creative industries – and this is how you get there”.

She added: “It’s that hard positioning of school and the creative industries I would like to see really strengthened so young people can see a route into it.”

As well as the £797 million value for the local economy, the creative industries contributed £125 billion to the UK economy, the board was told.

This made the sector bigger than the life sciences, car and aeronautical industries combined.

Arun District Council leader Martin Lury, a former teacher, said that he used to run an arts week, with a range of people coming in from musicians to artists which was popular with students.

He said that schools today were “bogged down” by requirements for students to reach a certain level in academic subjects.

Councillor Lury said: “We’ve got to make the attempt to bring back the arts because it’s going. The number of music teachers is reducing all the time and that’s crazy.

“When you think about mental health issues, music is such a great way of combating (poor) mental health.”

Adur and Worthing Business Partnership chair Andrew Swayne said that the proposals were “timely” because skills and employment support would come under the new elected mayor for Sussex.

Chichester College Group chief commercial officer Dan Power said that the vision “missed a trick” with the size and scope of the education facilities in the area.

The group runs Brighton Metropolitan College and other further education colleges across Sussex.

Mr Power said: “Just of today, there are 3,365 students studying across these fields from entry level to level four. We’ve got a £3 million T-level TV studio in Chichester.

“We’ve got podcast studios, theatres. I don’t think we shout about it enough how much we’ve got that we can use across the region.”

All four spoke during a debate about a draft “creative industries vision” for the region – and the Greater Brighton Economic Board approved the publication of the strategy.

The board is made up of council leaders and representatives of business and education from the Arun to the Ouse and from Brighton to Crawley and Gatwick.

Members were told that the economic value of the arts, entertainment and recreational sectors had almost doubled in the region in the 10 years from 2012 to 2022.

The sector includes the music industry and the performing arts as well as the likes of publishing, architecture, fashion, design and textiles, with tens of thousands employed or freelancing.

The strategy aims to ensure the Greater Brighton area is the best in Britain at nurturing creative industry talent as part of a wider push for economic growth.

In Brighton and Hove alone, thousands attend the biggest annual arts festival in England each May, and the area has produced an array of bestselling musicians from the Kooks to Celeste.

On the back of the success of the Brighton Festival, a growing number of other arts and performance events have flourished, showcasing film, comedy and early music among others.

Brighton also has a booming games sector, film and music schools and several established venues for music and theatre, with a renovation of the Hippodrome expected to add to their number.

Venues in the surrounding area host the likes of the Charleston Festival, the Glyndebourne Festival and Love Supreme while a little further afield the arts scene is thriving in places such as Chichester, Eastbourne and Bexhill.