Southern Culture
Did You Know?
Lego
The top visited SE attraction that charged for entry in 2004 with nearly 1.3 million visits was Legoland, Windsor & Maidenhead
The Arts: The benefits
The transforming power of the Arts
Participation in high quality arts activities has the potential to improve individual quality of life and to deliver on a wide range of key issues to local communities. For example, the arts can help encourage people to choose healthier lifestyles, and help build safer communities and promote social cohesion through improving peoples sense of belonging. There is also increasingly strong evidence to show that the arts are a key driver in social and economic regeneration, assisting with employment creation and skills development, contributing extensively to local economies, and helping to attract inward investment.
Safer and Stronger Communities
The arts have a major part to play in helping to galvanise community engagement and participation in planning, and in creating a sense of identity and pride. The next 15 years will see the largest programme of house building since the 1940s, three of the GovernmentҒs four designated growth areas are in the South East region. This offers an opportunity to plan arts and other cultural facilities and opportunities into the fabric of such communities from the start. The arts have an important role to play in community development - both of the physical environment and the personal experiences and relationships of individuals within a community.
Where the arts are not simply seen as an afterthought, but instead integrated into planning processes across the whole area, a number of local authorities have provided ample evidence of the part the arts can play in providing creative solutions in all areas of local activity. The arts have the power to transform lives and communities, to define and preserve our cultural identity, and to create opportunities for people throughout the country. They contribute significantly to improving well being for all, enabling self-expression, delivering basic and specialist skills and celebrating individual, community and national identity.
The arts offer places to go and things to do, enhancing the environment, contributing to local pride and helping to build stronger communities. They can offer innovative and creative solutions to problems and connect with those who are hardest to reach.
Artists' role
Artists have a key role of envisioning, designing and bringing creative and imaginative propositions to the public realm in general, beyond designing and constructing housing. Imaginative and pioneering artists and arts organisations have often worked in non-established arts settings. They build partnerships, for example in health, regeneration and criminal justice sectors. This work changes and improves lives on a daily basis, affecting:
crime prevention
Օ well-being
how people feel about the communities they live in