Croydon’s Creative People and Places Programme
Designed by and for all of Croydon by some of the borough’s historically under-represented communities
FAQs
How much funding is there?
Arts Council England (ACE) have confirmed £750,000 over 3 years starting from April 2026. The consortium hope to raise a further £180,000 during the 3 years from other bids to lottery and trusts and foundations making it a £930,000 programme over 3 years.
What Is a Creative People and Places Programme?
Creative People and Places is a national Arts Council England programme led by local consortia with a focus on developing community and grassroots engagement with culture. In Croydon funding for this programme has been secured by a consortium of 7 Croydon organisations including:
- Stanley Arts
- Croydon BME Forum
- Asian Resource Centre Croydon (ARCC)
- Reaching Higher Youth Charity
- Croydon Neighbourhood Care Association (CNCA)
- Croydon Creators & Makers
- Croydon Council
It’s an action learning programme to explore ways of empowering communities with less engagement with arts and culture. Decisions on how the project and creative funding is spent will be made by local people and communities.
There will be a small, dedicated team recruited to facilitate and co-ordinate this work which will be employed by and based at Stanley Arts as the consortium lead but will report to the consortium.
All consortium members are specifically excluded from being delivery partners so will not be receiving any funding for cultural activity.
What will Croydon’s Programme be Called?
This will be decided on by the communities involved. We expect this to be decided before the end of September 2026
What will the funding be spent on?
This will be decided by the communities involved via community panels so at this stage we don’t know what artforms or activities will be supported. Each group will have an allocation of funding to spend on
- Go and See programme where groups are funded to try out existing arts events and cultural programmes.
- Bespoke workshop / creation programmes with each group having the freedom to decide exactly what it wants to create
At the end of the three years, all groups will work together to host a free event for the whole of the borough. Whilst there are specific groups and communities this programme will focus on the programme is for everyone including the smaller commissions, workshops and events.
Who will decide where the money goes?
A majority of the funding – 60% – will be decided on by the community with the remaining 40% spent on a core team of 4 newly recruited part time staff led by a Programme Director (4 days/week)
Decisions will be taken by community panels, led by a Community Host for each group. The Community Host will be a paid position (freelance, 1/day week)
When will the programme start
Funding from ACE will start from April 2026 when the consortium will start recruiting the small core team and the first four Community Hosts. The aim is to have community panels established by the end of September with activities starting after that.
How can I keep informed of updates?
Sign-Up here to join Croydon’s Creative People and Places Programme Mailing list
Which communities will be involved?
The programme has three stages:
Stage 1 – October 2026 to June 2027 focusing on four priority groups who have been identified as under represented in Croydon audiences and cultural programmes in recent years:
- Black African communities
- Muslim communities
- Older People
- African/Caribbean Youth who have lacked opportunities in the creative arts space
Stage 2 – July 27 to March 28 focusing on up to 8 groups:
- The first cohort of 4 will continue
- Up to 4 additional groups will be added, to be decided on during Stage 1. This second cohort are likely to be more geographically focussed
Stage 3 – April 28 – September 2028 – all of Croydon
- All groups will work together to create a free event or series of events for all of Croydon
- The event will be created/curated and hosted by our community groups
How will decisions be made?
- Decisions on overall programme direction and budgets will be taken by the Consortium. Each consortium member will be able to bring a representative of a grassroots group (with expenses covered & full voting rights) to every meeting to ensure we have a strong grassroots voice at oversight level
- Decisions on activity within each community group will be taken by that community through community panels established by each group and led by the (paid) Community Hosts.
How can arts organisations within Croydon be involved?
Unlike previous programmes like the London Borough of Culture there will not be specific funding rounds for arts organisations to submit projects to. It will be up to each community to decide what it wants to do and which artists and arts organisations they want to work with. The ACE funding also prioritises high quality work and funding has been allocated to enable community panels to see creative work to inform their programming decisions. We would love to hear from arts organisations interested in offering free or subsidised tickets for the Go and See Programme from October 2026 to support this work.
The programme staff team will also support community panels with identifying cultural delivery partners and artists to realise their vision for projects and events.
Key Milestones*
*Please note these are subject to change following the confirmation of the funding agreement with ACE and further business planning when the core delivery team is in place
| Milestone | Date | Lead |
| Funding Agreement in place | End of February 26 | Stanley Arts |
| Recruitment of Core team | March – June 26 | Stanley Arts |
| Funding Starts | April 26 | Arts Council England |
| Cultivation events and recruitment of first 4 Community Hosts | April 26 – September 26 | Croydon BME Forum, ARCC, CNCA, Reaching Higher Youth Charity |
| Name decision | End of September 26 | Programme Lead and Community Hosts |
| Agree platform / process for individual groups to select delivery partners | April 26 – September 26 | Programme Lead and Community Hosts |
| Stage 1 activities start in first 4 groups – Go and See and Workshop / creation programmes | October 26 – June 27 | Community Hosts |
| Decision on 3 additional geographical groups | October 26 – Dec 26 | Consortium |
Consortium members – expectations for 2026
The consortium is responsible for recruiting the staff team and once they are in place, to holding them to account for the achievement of target outputs and project milestones. It will be up to the staff team led by the Director to hold external suppliers of arts and cultural services to account.
In 2026 we have the following expectations from consortium members
1 Consortium meetings
- All consortium members are expected to send a representative to all consortium meetings which will be held quarterly starting January 2026
- All consortium members are encouraged to bring a grassroots organisation to each consortium meeting with payment of expenses and full voting rights. We imagine that grassroots organisations would attend a number of meetings and that each consortium member might have 3 or 4 different grassroots partners across the life of the programme
2 Funding Agreement
- Stanley Arts as lead consortium partner organisation will be responsible for negotiating and signing the funding agreement with Arts Council England
3 Recruitment of Core team
- Draft JDs will be circulated for all consortium members to input into
- Selection panels – it is expected that consortium members will sit on selection panels
4 Recruitment of Community Hosts
- A standard draft JD for all Community Hosts will be circulated for all consortium members to input into
- Recruitment leads for the first 4 communities are
- Black African Communities – Croydon BME Forum
- Muslim Communities – ARCC
- Older People – CNCA
- African/Caribbean Youth who have lacked opportunities in the creative arts space – Reaching Higher Youth Charity
- We are expecting each recruitment lead to consult with their specific communities and ensure that individuals from the community are aware of the opportunity when recruitment starts. That might include some small bespoke cultivation events as well as speaking about the CPP and Community Hosts opportunity at existing network meetings and forums
5 Training and other support for Community Hosts
- Once the Community Hosts are in post we hope that all consortium members will support them through opening up any in-house training opportunities they may have to the hosts.
- We would expect the recruitment leads to act as mentors for each community host
6 Other commitments in the bid
- Stanley Arts are providing office accommodation for the core staff team
- Stanley Arts, Croydon BME Forum and ARCC will provide meeting space for community consultations and consortium meetings
- All consortium mentors agreed to mentor their grassroots organisations attending consortium meetings
- All consortium members are expected to support all marketing and social media activity during the life of the programme
