Claremont Photo by Richard de Pesando
Claremont creative industry community?
Now that the distraction of Root 1066/Bonfire Night/Coastal Currents/Hastings Fringe has died down – it’s time to start looking at this again, writes Richard De Pesando, who a few months ago wrote about the concept of a Claremont Creative Community in Hastings.
A recent article in The Guardian newspaper highlights the huge migration of small creative businesses and entrepreneurship OUT of London – with a 230% increase in passengers from Brighton to London pursuing new business, presenting to clients and professional networking (despite the terrible train services). Hastings has always had a bedrock of creative practitioners with more and more attracted every year.
As I have already identified and expressed via the earlier article and on Hastings Creatives, I feel we’re failing to create a cohesive professional creative industries community for a number of reasons – all of which are resolvable – and it’s holding us, and the town, back. We’re not networking well enough, we’re not skill sharing and were not attracting new business.
Personally, I spend a disproportionate amount of time trying to attract work to Hastings and I’m not connecting with the practitioners that I need locally – and am being forced to turn down work or look for help outside. Yet I know that these people are here. It’s not just myself that faces this problem; everyone in my shared studio and all the designers and digital people I know locally say the same.
85% of all new creative businesses start up with between just £500 and £1000 in assets, and only 25% of new graduates nationally can expect full time employment in their chosen field – and that goes down to 5% locally. There is little, if any, funding or support available for SME (small and medium sized enterprises) designers or freelancers; we basically have to do it all for ourselves.
We need all the help and advantage we can get – and better presentation is part of that. It’s important to realise that as the educational landscape here changes over the next few years, there will be far more degree level creative graduates in Hastings and we need an environment that keeps them here rather than sees them gravitating to Brighton or London. I’m a bit sick of losing work just because of where I live.
I have already pitched a form of Claremont Creative Triangle as a business district, because it’s a hub of design businesses and good quality independent retail and provides a geographical beacon for the whole area – bridging the Old Town and St Leonards – and capitalising on the footfall from the New Town to the Pier. In a few weeks, I’ll be setting up a public meeting here with an open invitation to anyone interested – and distributing all the information and ideas that we can put together. I’ve already had tentative conversations with HBC and a number of practitioners who are interested.
Critically – I’m not suggesting a funding bid, creating work, sponsorship, apprenticeship or employment opportunities or promoting individual businesses at this stage. I’d like to find a way that professional creative industry practitioners can raise their visibility, attract new business and professionals – and establish Hastings as a creative centre to compete with other towns and make us a destination for employers and clients. If we don’t do it now – ourselves – someone will eventually realise that they can do it as a form commercial venture and exploit rather than celebrate the town.
If you would like to contribute, have any comments to add or would like to talk to me further, please feel free to contact me and share your thoughts via email: depesando@gmail.com.
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2 Comments
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Well, thanks for your response – and to be honest – I’ve had roughly 20 personal emails over the last couple of months since this project first began – all along roughly the same lines, and some very abusive indeed. I’ve responded to all of them personally and almost every single one has apologised, the rest, I presume, were too embarrassed.
Firstly – you are making a lot of foolish assumptions about me, presumably based on some cliche you’ve picked up from the media or your own ignorance, and I have gone to a lot of trouble to NOT make this project all about me – I just want to start a process that benefits the whole community, as well as the creative one – professional, or otherwise.
I have a 25 year association with Hastings and have lived in Ore Village (not the good part) for the last decade, I just work in Claremont. I didn’t come here with pocket loads of cash – and I don’t actually know anyone who did. Over the years I’ve worked extensively with charities, housing associations, overseas development organisations and associated businesses who have little or no funding, and frequently work with local companies, for free, to get their business started. I’m not alone in this – people don’t gravitate to Hastings because there is a pot of gold here – they tend want to live somewhere that they can have a good quality of life with a decent community. I’m also a life long member of the Labour Party – except for the Blair years, when I was a very active member of the Green Party (so please don’t try throwing the ‘Blaire Elitist’ label at me – I have no idea what that even means). Additionally – I spent some years at SCCH, running courses to bring local students up to degree level – and being the course leader of the Design Degree for several years – until my own personal discomfort with student fees made it impossible for me to continue – I don’t believe that students are getting value for money and I am totally opposed to paying for education. You should probably also know that I was in a serious accident last year and spent 6 months off work – which is career death when you are self employed, so I’m working from a position of being in a lot of personal debt – and as I can’t afford a pension, shall continue to work until I drop.
There are no employers in my field locally – but as it’s an industry that is biased towards freelancers – Hastings is ideal for us – and there are many of us here – but we are all earning considerably less than we should, I quite happily supplement my income with bar and security work at night – or I wouldn’t be able to pay my bills (and being self employed – I have many, many more expenses than an employee, as do all freelancers) I believe (and there is research to back me up) that the income for someone in Hastings in my field is roughly half what it should be. That’s fine – I have no interest in being rich – I could earn far more working in Costa or Aldi (I’ve checked!), but this is what I do for a living – and Hastings has a large creative community who are just like me – working very hard, putting back into the community and helping to make it the place it is.
This project is simply to make life a bit more manageable for us, and improve the quality of life in central Hastings. If we don’t do this for ourselves – potentially, someone with money will come in from the outside and capitalise on the creative community for their own ends, while presenting themselves as some kind of saviour and turn it into a machine for making money. I’ve been adamant from the start that no public money, no grants, no funding should be sought – we should be doing this for ourselves. A Creative Quarter already exists in the documentation at HBC, we just need it to be more visible, and be more of a community – than isolated freelancers. The practitioners already here are some of the best in the UK, and strive to employ locally and bring business down here. Sadly – the biggest obstacle is people like yourself who either don’t take the time to listen and understand, or who are so blinded by their own prejudices and frustrations they would rather lash out than think practically as problem solvers.
I spent a year on the Cultural Reference Comittee at HBC, a process designed to consult with the people of Hastings to try and direct the cultural, creative industries forward – every meeting was hijacked by members who wanted to talk down Hastings and bring their own grievences to the table. When I worked at Station Plaza, senior managers from the University of Brighton would openly mock Hastings and call it ‘miserabalist’ in it’s attitude. Are you really happy to be part of that?
I don’t need anyone to lecture me on the crisis in social housing, the levels of poverty and the lack of funding in this town – I live it every day – having lived in Central London, Liverpool and Brighton I can assure you – it’s not a local problem, but I do think that Hastings is the best place to live in the UK. It could be much better, it doesn’t need much and it can be small steps. I’m trying to start a process that celebrates and supports the local businesses and hard working professionals that want to make this town better without changing what is so special about Hastings. Perhaps you need to reflect on your own attitude, and do the same.
Comment by Richard de Pesando — Sunday, Nov 6, 2016 @ 10:15
Your community might get more support if it showed a serious interest in the people amongst whom it its members are depositing themselves, Richard – the enormous numbers of poor and unemployed in this area.
Some of them are economic exiles from wealthier areas too, but they don’t come with pocketloads of cash – they’ve been turfed out by local authorities on the make.
“Serious interest” means making a commitment to involving yourselves with them, whether it’s making a regular donation to Counselling Place and HARC, or shifting your bum along to a weekly stint with Snowflake.
“The distractions of” [etc]. How entitled and conceited can you get? Your needs trump all, eh?
Comment by jess — Sunday, Nov 6, 2016 @ 01:32