London arts sector must learn to speak corporate to save itself
To protect the vital arts sector, London’s creatives must learn the corporate walk and talk, writes Austin Casey
A lack of arts funding and the knock-on effects of this on the economy, society and wellbeing have been hot topics of conversation in recent times. However, these conversations tend to stay trapped within the arts and culture sector itself, and as long as they do, real change won’t happen. The future of this vital industry depends instead on taking this discourse to every sector of the economy and developing meaningful cross-sector collaborations that prevent culture’s continued marginalisation.
BBC research in April showed that the number of plays and musicals staged has dropped almost a third compared to 10 years prior, whilst GLA data shows that six in 10 LGBTQ+ venues have closed since 2006. What’s more, local authority arts funding has dropped by 50 per cent since 2010. As Lisa Nandy, the culture secretary, put it earlier this year, “culture has been “erased” from communities and curriculums”.
While four out of five visitors say culture is what they love about London, we’re not seeing this reflected in voting, with culture sitting at the bottom of an electorate’s priorities; as Justine Simons, deputy mayor for culture and creative industries, wrote in The Standard last year, there are “no votes in culture”. What this means is that when culture is viewed in a silo, it naturally falls to the bottom of a priority list that includes healthcare and housing. This is why we need to change perceptions of culture as a standalone industry and instead demonstrate how it is central to the success of all sectors of the economy.
As our creative partners always remind us, culture should form part of everything – from property and infrastructure to healthcare and national identity. For example, culture should be afforded space when developing the initial masterplan of a new place, the power of culture should be leveraged as a way to drive footfall on public transport, culture should be considered as a measure to reduce crime and improve mental health.
However, in order to extend these conversations beyond the arts and culture sphere, we need to speak quantitatively and provide data, to convince investors and policy makers of the tangible economic value of culture. And this is something we can do already.
The data on London’s arts sector
According to 2025 DCMS figures, London’s creative industries bring in £64bn a year. UCL research has shown people over the age of 50 who frequently visit cultural venues had a 32 per cent lower risk of developing depression. Varley (2019) published data showing the effects on crime – a reduction in those classed as medium risk and increase in those classed low risk following arts and culture programmes. A paper in the International Journal of Housing Markets and Analysis (2019) showed that houses in the vicinity of buildings with high cultural value sell at a premium.
Our city is truly unique in harnessing the power of its culture. It is ranked number one in the Global Power City Index 2024 in attracting people, capital and enterprise, with culture as one of the main factors driving this. The story wasn’t always as such and if we look back 25 years ago, London had no cultural strategy and a lot of the key moments in our calendar, such as Fashion Week, London Design Festival and Frieze, didn’t exist or had a much lower profile.
With the mayoralty celebrating 25 years in 2025, it’s worth reflecting on the huge amount of work already put in by Justine Simons and others to transform the cultural scene in the city. Now London is proud to be home to iconic venues like East Bank, the V&A and the future London Museum, with its West End bringing in 5m more visitors than Broadway in 2024.
We don’t want this hard work to lose momentum due to the cuts in funding, but there remain a number of barriers to be addressed. Young people may be deterred from entering creative fields due to lack of information about the variety of jobs and organisations in which they can use their passion and skills. They may be deterred by parents who don’t see creative jobs as viable or teachers who aren’t able to provide clarity on the path between creative education and real-life jobs. They may not have that initial financial support and network to rely on in the early stages of their careers or they may not feel represented in the creative field.
Work to remove these barriers and increase accessibility is already taking place, for example, the creation of 12 creative enterprise zones providing over 70,000 sq ft of affordable workspace. Moreover, models such as the Culture Mile BID, in Canada, involve culture as a theme running across all areas of their work, which is especially important following Centre for London’s ‘Arts for All’ report earlier this year, which showed the lack of engagement by Londoners with arts and culture in the city.
Alongside increasing accessibility through bringing culture into shared spaces, representing a variety of backgrounds and types of culture, and making sure culture is affordable through its events programme, The Culture Mile also strives to provide an example of how these conversations can extend beyond the cultural sphere. The BID has collaborated on events with property developers such as Brookfield Properties, Canada Corporation and corporate levy payers such as Newable to deliver events and activations that include jazz music festivals, summer sports campaigns and fitness challenges.
Real change has already happened over the last 25 years of the mayoralty, and to ensure we keep up this momentum, we believe cultural organisations should look beyond their own sector while including real quantitative data in their conversations that demonstrates the value of culture in a way non-creatives will understand. With culture nearly absent from the Budget this year, we see the industry again being sidelined, when in reality, it can be the solution to many of our city’s issues. We need every sector of the economy to understand this, and to finally give culture a permanent seat at the table.
Austin Casey is CEO at the Culture Mile BID