Community involvement creating embroidery panel Creative Land Trust

Impact

Creative Land Trust is building a long-term portfolio of permanent creative infrastructure across London. Our impact on artists, communities and the capital is already being felt in individual artists’ lives, their ecosystems and outreach to local communities.

How Creative Land Trust creates long-term change

CLT is a creative placekeeper; its role is distinct from studio provision. It secures permanent creative infrastructure that would otherwise be difficult to protect through the market alone.

What Creative Land Trust does

THE CHALLENGE

Rising land values, redevelopment pressure and insecure leases are shrinking affordable creative space in London and increasing precarity for artists and providers.

Foundational outcomes

0-36 months

WHAT CLT DOES

  • Secures buildings

  • Protects affordability

  • Partners providers

  • Supports artists

  • Shapes policy

Artist outcomes

1-5 years

  • Workspace secured

  • Providers stabilised

  • Infrastructure retained

Place outcomes

3-7 years

  • Practice sustained

  • Careers opened

  • Access widen

  • Artists retained

System outcomes

5+ years

  • Communities grow

  • Local engagement rises

  • Creativity visible

  • Places enriched

Long-term impact

  • Infrastructure recognised

  • Policy strengthened

  • Model informs others

LONG-TERM IMPACT

A London where artists from all backgrounds build long-term careers, creative communities remain rooted in neighbourhoods, and affordable creative infrastructure is protected.

Creative infrastructure

Securing affordable space for the long term

73%

say they have extended their professional network in the building

87%

say they are confident they can keep their studio long-term

90%

choose to renew their studio rental contracts

50%

of new studio holders were working from home before

182

Artists supported

90%

say they are confident in the long-term provision of their building

93%

agreed their space is affordable

100%

say their studio is essential to their creative development

Our impact includes:

  • A growing portfolio of permanent artist studio space across the capital
  • Hundreds of artists supported
  • Buildings protected for creative use in perpetuity
  • Strong and sustained demand for affordable workspace
  • Long-term cultural and community benefit within neighbourhoods across London

We work collaboratively with studio providers, developers, local authorities, funders and communities to strengthen London’s long-term creative infrastructure.

Our Reports

We commission reports to help illustrate the impact and importance of affordable creative workspace for artists, communities, place, the economy and society.

Nothing Found

Our Reports

We commission reports to help illustrate the impact and importance of affordable creative workspace for artists, communities, place, the economy and society.

Nothing Found

Research

Creative Land Trust was conceived following a series of reports highlighting the challenges of sustaining creative industries in prospering cities, and the risks poses to our culture and economies if the sector is not protected.

Since then, we have seen unprecedented changes to communities and industries. COVID-19 highlighted the fragility of our creative industries as well as shedding light on many other challenges within the sector.

As we continue to understand and forecast the many external forces that affect studio provision, we will document findings, reports and case studies to help inform our support of the sector.

  • MoL Creating Open Workspaces

    GLA (July 2015)

    This guide is intended to help councils set up new open workspaces, places where businesses and professionals share space, and/or specialist equipment, in order to reduce costs. For example co-working spaces, incubators, artists’ studios and maker-spaces.

  • Artists Workspace Study

    GLA (September 2014)

    Most artists are making under £10,000 per year from their work, so it is crucial to keep the cost of workspace low. However, within the next 5 years 28% of artists’ studios do not expect to be able to secure their premises. This study aims to establish an accurate picture of affordable studio provision for artists in London.

  • Workspace that works

    Future of London (2011)

    Workspace is under threat from higher-value residential use, yet small and micro businesses make up 99% of all London businesses and account for 41% of employment.This paper showcases best practice in linking workspace provision to regeneration, and highlights issues local authorities should be aware of when planning workspace projects.

Research

Creative Land Trust was conceived following a series of reports highlighting the challenges of sustaining creative industries in prospering cities, and the risks posed to our culture and economies if the sector is not protected.

Since then, we have seen unprecedented changes to communities and industries. COVID-19 highlighted the fragility of our creative industries as well as shedding light on many other challenges within the sector.

As we continue to understand and forecast the many external forces that affect studio provision, we will document findings, reports and case studies to help inform our support of the sector.

  • Social Mobility in the Creative Economy

    PEC & NESTA (September 2021)

    Class, participation and job quality in the UK Creative Industries. The first of a series of reports from the PEC’s Policy Review on Class and Creative Industries. The research shows a significant lack of diversity across creative industries, particularly across classes.

  • Impact of the Pandemic on the Livelihood of Visual Arts Workers

    CVAN (September 2021)

    The average income of an artist is approximately £15,000 per annum. The average loss of income for a visual arts worker during the COVID-19 pandemic was just over £7,000. CVAN look at the impact of the pandemic and lockdown on the sector.