The role of culture and sport in our communities

An overview

Key to this will be our cultural infrastructure. As the examples throughout this site show, sport and culture are fundamental to our communities. They offer places for people to come together, find common interest and a sense of shared identity. They give children and young people the chance to enhance their understanding of the world, and develop new skills and knowledge. And they make places more pleasant, providing attractive environments that improving the day-to-day experience of all who live and work there.

living places aims to work directly with the people shaping our communities, to provide them with the information and advice needed to make sport and culture for all a reality. We will advocate at the highest level, ensuring that communities are given the resources needed to invest in high quality public spaces. And we will empower the people that make up communities, helping them make the most of the opportunities sport and culture brings.

Bricks and mortar won’t be enough on their own. New communities have enormous potential, which can only be fulfilled through design quality that reflects their importance. The quality of life expectations we have today demand public spaces rich in sporting and cultural potential. living places will work hard to help meet these ambitions.

The role of culture and sport in our communities

Culture and Sport work in many ways to help build cohesive, empowered and active communities. living places is about ensuring that public spaces are ready to match people’s quality of life aspirations, whether they are related to health, society or prosperity.

Health and wellbeing

Ensuring that people are given the opportunity to enjoy sport and exercise is a crucial part of safeguarding the nation’s health. Issues such as the growing obesity crisis highlight how essential it is that people have the public space available to take regular exercise. And it’s not only physical health that sport and culture benefit. Manchester Metropolitan University’s ‘Arts in Health Programme’ research study found that painting, dance, music and story-telling can measurably increase our psychological well-being and lower levels of anxiety and depression.

Social cohesion

Neighbourhoods are becoming ever more diverse, with people from an increasingly wide range of backgrounds living side by side. These differences can result in places becoming socially fragmented, however, DCMS research has shown that people taking part in cultural activities are 20 per cent more likely to know ‘many people’ in their neighbourhood, and 60 per cent more likely to believe ‘many of their neighbours can be trusted’. In 2006 a major public consultation by the Arts Council found widespread support for the idea that the arts are able to bring people together, create links between different communities, and encourage people to feel a sense of pride and belonging in their local area. Providing cultural and sporting activities in communities is one way of helping to integrate people from different backgrounds.

Economic impact

Spaces for sports and culture also make a significant economic contribution to communities. A recent report from the Work Foundation found the UK’s creative industries employ 1.8 million people, making up 7.3 percent of the country’s economy. Sport related activity accounts for more than £9.8 billion of the UK economy. This momentum will only be maintained if we ensure that the next generation of sporting and creative talent is allowed to flourish. This means ensuring that communities up and down the country contain spaces in which people can discover sports and culture, develop skills, and aspire to excellence. Heritage also has a role to play in contributing to the economy. In 2007, a study by LSE academic Tony Travers estimated the economic benefit to the country of the UK’s major museums and galleries to be £1.5 billion per annum.

Places that are well designed, with a sense of heritage and distinctiveness, help to build pride in areas. This is a vital tool in combating neighbourhood decline, and people’s shared sense of place can give rise to active communities. The results can be astounding; with estates being reborn, anti-social behaviour confronted and marginalised people given fresh confidence.

These examples illustrate just a few of the ways our society benefits from public spaces offering cultural and sporting opportunities, and how such places can play a role in tackling pressing social issues. But vital as this is, we should not lose sight of the fact that sporting and cultural opportunities are of value in and of themselves. We should make sure that the role of culture and sport in our communities is valued and given equal prominence alongside more readily recognised public services.

living places are prosperous and vital communities where people will choose to live, now and into the future. Throughout the site, you can find examples where culture and sport are playing an integral role in helping communities to thrive. Some are instantly recognisable: See Landmark examples

While others show the results achieved by living places partners through projects they have funded and supported across the country: See living places Partners’ case studies

There are many more examples of the impact culture and sport can have on local communities – to read about what’s happening in your region, visit living places in action.