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.