Projects

The Albany is a community arts centre and cultural hub in Deptford that exists to platform local artists and drive creative participation in southeast London. They identified an opportunity to grow their revenue streams and impact with physical improvements to the building, made possible through residential development above the theatre. The Albany looked to secure £8m funding from the GLA to partially support capital improvements, and required an assessment of the economic and social impacts to support their case.

We worked closely with The Albany team and their development partner Stories to understand how changes to the building would affect operations, space users, and the capacity to further support artist development and launching both careers and start-up creative and community organisations. We assessed qualitative and quantitative impacts to provide a holistic picture from financial benefits for the organisation to long-term community development support, and showed how these supported the priorities and policies of the Cultural Strategy for London.

Our Impact Assessment was submitted to the GLA as part of the business case for capital funding. It showed that by revolutionising their business model through better and more efficient use of their building, the Albany could become more sustainable and create additional artistic and community activity, and become a model for balancing commercial activity with locally-responsive support for creatives and communities.

Woolwich is a historic retail centre for outer London which is experiencing significant investment into the town centre and development in riverside areas. It has issues with the town centre experience and perception, particularly around safety and anti-social behaviour at night. Having worked with RB Greenwich on the Greenwich Town Centre Night Time Strategy, we were asked to develop a bid for Woolwich to become the Mayor of London’s Night Time Enterprise Zone (NTEZ) for 2023, which was successful.

We developed a collaborative programme of events with town centre stakeholders and cultural partners at a variety of scales: smaller and more regular to engage with local residents and larger festival-style events to activate the town centre and start to change negative perceptions. Alongside this, the council engaged businesses in a Woolwich Lates branding and promotion scheme which helped businesses benefit from event days, extend their operating hours and serve new customers. We were commissioned to evaluate the impact of the programme and carried out visitor, resident, and business surveys as well as speaking to local groups at community events. We also used datasets from the High Streets Data Service to track impact of footfall and spend on event evenings to show economic and vibrancy effects of the events programme.

The Woolwich NTEZ Evaluation showed impact for businesses, visitors, communities and night workers and helped inform the GLA’s parallel report on the three 2023 NTEZ areas. The Woolwich NTEZ also catalysed partnership working around evening events and changing the town centre experience. Event attendees reported feeling more connected to each other and hopeful about the future of Woolwich, and the Woolwich Lates programme and brand will continue to be used based on the positive results of 2023.