Our Campaign for a Creative Community Hub in Newcastle
With accessible creative community space being lacking in Newcastle, we have been on a 3-year mission to open a community hub. A place where anyone can find belonging and wellbeing by participating in the creative arts. A place where more grassroots community artists can come together and support their groups. 'The Third Place', the place you choose to go to, other than home or work. To play, relax, and meet diverse and like-minded. Our capital project continues to make progress. We hope it won't be much longer before our vision becomes reality.
We wanted to emerge from Covid-19 and make a positive difference by doing creative artful things that would bring people together as part of a community. After so much time apart, we felt people were in real need for human connection.
​
​But we recognised there was a problem, not only for us, but a vast amount of other artists, community groups and grassroots organisations like us: The lack of accessible, affordable and available creative space in town.
This has been a long-term problem in our city but was made even worse by the demolition of ‘meanwhile spaces’ in Newcastle towards the end of the pandemic.
​We set out on a mission to find a permanent solution and make positive change.
The Building
First, we needed to see if there was an actual vacant building out there that could be repurposed. We knew it had to be in an easy to get to location, and spacious.
​
After months of viewing properties online and trawling the streets, we eventually found one. An old disused building in the Pink Triangle, a stone’s throw from Newcastle Central Station.
Eureka!
How it started
We chased the opportunity relentlessly, embarked on intensive market research with the community, and secured planning permission to repurpose the ex-wholesale-store into an 'accessible creative arts hub' to provide workshop rooms, a theatre, a cafe bar, co-working offices, a bike park and roof garden.
​
We were awarded small pots of research and development funding from NTCA (North of Tyne Combined Authority), administered through Newcastle City Council and Creative UK to engage building surveyors, market researchers and a solicitor, and began negotiations on a 30-year lease
Then we embarked on our crowdfunding campaign to kickstart the capital project. This raised £44K and swathes of public support.
​
​
Campaign Video Venue Tour
Bev Fox (Boho Arts Founder & Co-Artistic Director) takes Hazel Burton (Trustee) on an exciting and informative tour inside the building. She explains how it can be repurposed into an inclusive creative arts venue for everyone to enjoy.
​
The video shows the benefits the venue will bring to the public, why it is so important to Newcastle's grassroots artistic community, the kind of wonderful activities that will happen within, images and concept designs for the space.
Currently
The success of the crowdfunding campaign in March 2023 was paramount to proving there was public support and demand for our idea and £44,000 is safely ringfenced. The North East Combined Authority (NECA) awarded the project £523,000 in Feb 2024. However, we were rejected by the Arts Council and several small trusts and foundations in April 2024. We had to rethink things, rework the designs and business plan to deliver the project in phases. The current budget for Phase 1 (primarily the ground floor) is £1,250,00 and we are currently engaged in our second round of fundraising.
​
Newcastle City Council has championed us since the start and are now supportive project partners. Live Theatre has also recently come on board as a supporting partner to help us on the capital development and first few years of operations.
​
Our current target date to sign the 30-year lease and begin construction is December 2024, aiming to launch in December 2025.
The future could look something like this
