Working with Creative PEC and Arts Council England, the RSA is bringing together leaders across regions in the UK to grow the impact of the creative industries and connect existing clusters of activity to unleash potential.  

The opportunity

The UK is a creative superpower, with the creative industries experiencing rapid growth and growing one and a half times faster than the rest of the UK economy over the last decade, in spite of strong national headwinds. The cultural and creative industries are special too—they offer opportunities for communities to come together, have been shown to improve individual wellbeing and make places attractive places to live and work. 

A unique feature of the creative industries is that they tend to cluster – that is, creative firms tend to locate in physical proximity to other similar firms and to collaborate and compete, due to a combination of factors. This phenomenon has been shown to drive innovation, productivity, and economic growth, and to produce a range of indirect benefits for the places in which they are located.

These benefits are well established and indeed, the UK has one supercluster – London and the South East – which accounted for 68% of UK creative industries GVA (£71bn) in 2019 alone. Against a backdrop of sluggish national economic growth, and stark regional disparities, we believe that the growth of the creative industries can be harnessed to promote local prosperity across the regions and nations of the UK. What if we could join up existing creative clusters, across cities or regions of the UK, to achieve similar benefits that London and the South East experience? What if we could develop creative corridors?

We envisage a world where the next generation of creative talent, entrepreneurs and artists can thrive in their communities, and access world-class opportunities and investment on their doorsteps. Where there are strong local creative skills ecosystems, careers pathways and no longer does anyone need to “get out to get on”.

In October 2024, the RSA published a report in partnership with the Creative PEC and Arts Council England – Creative Corridors: connecting clusters to unleash potential. This serves as a bold new framework for action, showing how clusters of local leaders, creative businesses, arts and cultural institutions, and networks of talent across all parts of the country, can collaborate at scale - unlocking ever greater opportunities for investment, jobs, skills provision and cultural access.

The launch of this report follows the recent publication of the government's Industrial Strategy Green Paper, which firmly positions the creative industries as one of the eight sectors on which the UK's economic growth will be based.

Launched at The Lowry in Salford by Andy Haldane, CEO of the RSA; Darren Henley, CEO of ACE; and Hasan Bakhshi, Director of Creative PEC, with guest panellists including Northern Metro Mayors Andy Burnham and Tracy Brabin, the report argues that local leaders should be immediately supported to explore how creative corridors might transform places around the country.

The Northern Creative Corridor Charter

There are a variety of regional sub-sector strengths in the North. The Northern screen industry is growing, with Northern film and TV crews working across the region. The North West is a hub for live music, with Liverpool hosting the Eurovision Song Contest in 2023 and Manchester attracting world-class talent for Manchester International Festival. In Yorkshire, AHRC’s Creative Clusters programme has also boosted the historical textiles and fashion expertise in the region. The concentration of video game studios in Newcastle and Gateshead in the North East and emerging CreaTech companies have made it an attractive home for skilled tech workers. The region is also home to invaluable arts, culture, and heritage institutions such as the Alhambra Theatre in Bradford, the Beamish Museum in County Durham, and a network of rural and urban museum sites across the region preserving Roman history.

The Northern Creative Corridor Charter was established and convened by the RSA in November 2023, with 30 founding signatories. These signatories include the mayors of Greater Manchester, West Yorkshire, South Yorkshire and the North of Tyne, as well as sector leaders including Creative UK, North-East Screen, the N8 universities and Ubisoft, plus the BBC, ITV and Channel 4.

• Read the charter
• See all signatories

Each signatory has committed to making the North of England 'one of the best regions in the UK for creative industries to thrive.' 

A creative corridor for the North of England, ‘One Creative North’, was announced at the Convention of the North by Tracy Brabin, Mayor of West Yorkshire, in March 2024.

The pan-regional initiative, led by the Northern Mayors and chaired by Jude Kelly CBE, will see the launch of a new multi-million-pound Investment Fund, as well as life-long training opportunities to help nurture and retain creative talent in the North.”

Since then, at the Northern Creative Corridor Summit in February 2024, plans for shaping a suite of initiatives under the banner “One Creative North” was agreed and work has since started further develop these initiatives, being led by Jude Kelly CBE.

Next steps

To find out more about the growth potential of Creative Corridors and the development of the Northern Creative Corridor, join our mailing list by registering your interest below.