In 2018, the GLA published its Cultural Infrastructure Map, providing locations of several typologies of cultural spaces across the city, such as cinemas, makerspaces, pubs, rehearsal spaces, and performance venues. In 2022, the GLA commissioned an update to the map and an assessment of how London’s cultural infrastructure landscape has changed over time, led by project partners We Made That.

To support the work, PRD used the 2022 data collected by We Made That and mapped where infrastructure opened or closed throughout the city. We visualised the magnitude of change, showing areas with high numbers of closures and few openings; high numbers of openings and few closures; and high numbers of both. This helped identify places in London that could be prioritised to safeguard against further losses of space or churn.

We also calculated infrastructure changes by different types of boundary, such as openings/closures within town centres, strategic industrial land, and opportunity areas, which included correlation analysis to review whether particular boundaries are associated with, or predictors of, higher rates of openings or closures.