A defining moment for Hampshire’s cultural future

Our region stands on the cusp of significant change. With devolution and local government reorganisation (LGR) on the horizon across Hampshire, Portsmouth, Southampton, and the Isle of Wight, we have a unique opportunity and responsibility to ensure culture remains at the heart of our shared future. Administrative borders will shift in the coming years, but cultural identities, people’s interests and loyalties have never been defined or restricted by council boundaries. In its briefing on devolution, Hampshire County Council reminds us that “administrative boundaries don’t relate to real life, where we live, work, shop, socialise and engage in leisure activities cross local authority boundaries all the time.”  I entirely agree.

Whether immersed in the vibrant atmosphere of a Basingstoke festival, awed by the view from St Catherine’s Hill or captivated by the historical treasures of a Portsmouth museum, people care most profoundly about the quality of their experience and the emotions, reflections and inspirations that it stimulates. At our best, cultural providers, artists and creatives enable audiences to feel part of a rich narrative and distinctive sense of place built by diverse communities over generations. ‘Place-making,’ to use the current lingo, is continually shifting and evolving, but it has never been something created solely by policymakers and politicians. While they play their part, the true identity of a place is more complex. It is experiential, historical and multi-faceted.

Perhaps most significantly, place is created by people in their daily lives, by communities working and living together. The cultural life we, as artists, curators and cultural organisations, help enable and provide must reflect what communities instinctively feel and recognise. It must represent the here and now but equally tell the story of how we got here and represent all who made it happen, for better or for worse. And in the Hampshire and Solent region that welcomes over 50 million tourists every year and whose spending supports nearly 87,000 jobs, our cultural offer must appeal to visitors as well. Visitors, even more so than residents, are not concerned with civic boundaries. Tourists come for everything the region offers without restricting themselves to one town, city, or attraction, caring little about who administers the experience. Balancing a vibrant local cultural offer with the tourist economy is a difficult balance to achieve, not something any single organisation or local authority can deliver alone.

The proposed Hampshire and Solent Strategic Authority with a directly elected Mayor in 2026 promises new investment and powers for the region. Subsequent proposals to replace county and district councils with new unitary authorities imply major changes in service funding and management, including cultural services. These reforms bring both opportunities and risks for our region’s cultural life. For cultural tourism, the opportunities could be significant, enabling strategic planning at a regional level and a holistic approach to attracting visitors and communicating our region’s diverse, comprehensive visitor experiences. From national parks to vibrant multi-cultural cities and with our globally significant heritage stories, we are collectively a major visitor destination. A new Mayor could champion a cohesive approach to tourism, leveraging investment to grow our £3 billion visitor economy. If we unite as a cultural sector, the Mayor could also ensure culture is embedded within regional plans for regeneration, skills, innovation and partnerships, far beyond what individual towns or cities could secure independently.

However, there is a risk that amid these changes, cultural investment might fragment, become inequitable, or fall between the cracks. As new councils emerge, each might be tempted to focus solely on championing “their patch” at the expense of the wider cultural ecosystem. Small but important projects and ways of working that serve a cluster of towns and communities that span new civic boundaries might struggle if local decision makers are not encouraged to keep their eyes on the bigger picture. We must guard against administrative lines interrupting the natural flow of audiences, ideas, relationships and flourishing cultural initiatives or venues.

To avoid these pitfalls, I believe we must acknowledge and advance what unites our places and people: high quality, rich, inclusive, place-centred culture that celebrates uniqueness and diversity without expecting audiences to be constrained by political boundaries. To achieve this, we must build a collaborative, cohesive and supportive cultural ecology.

Hampshire Cultural Trust (HCT) was founded in 2014 through collaboration. Our founding partners, Hampshire County Council and Winchester City Council, recognised that their collective strength was essential for sustaining the cultural services they delivered and the publicly owned collections that they care for. Over the past decade, HCT has shown how effective this approach can be, working at scale to build capacity and deliver efficiencies through resource and knowledge sharing, yet not imposing a uniform cultural offer on the distinct places that we serve. HCT’s strength lies in diversity; each venue and program celebrating its own sense of place and responding authentically to local communities who should always see themselves reflected in what we deliver. Of course, we don’t always get it right, but the spirit of collaboration and openness defines our mission. It is this same spirit that is needed now across the wider cultural sector to navigate devolution successfully.

While our sector is naturally innovative and collaborative, there remains a clear and expressed need for better infrastructure to facilitate and amplify these efforts across Hampshire. As a whole, we span the rural and the urban, the coast and the downs, which gives us both a unique offer and a challenge to create connectivity. Culture Connects launches with an aspiration to fulfil part of this need. To become a go-to network and online hub for Hampshire’s creative community of artists, producers, heritage professionals, creative businesses, venues and more. Facilitated by Hampshire Cultural Trust but driven by a group of sector partners from across the county, it brings together a comprehensive directory with bespoke support to spark new collaborations, encourage the exchange of ideas and help develop community-focused projects. By pooling our resources and championing joint investment, Culture Connects seeks to unlock economies of scale, foster sustainable growth and help great cultural work flourish in every corner of Hampshire. The concept builds on successful co-creation work that has been happening in Gosport, Rushmoor and the New Forest, and responds to what sector professionals have asked for by way of support in these localities. Our vision is that moving out to county level, whilst retaining the ability to ‘dive in’ to local places, Culture Connects can help knit together our diverse towns and communities by fostering grassroots connections and new ideas.

At its heart, Culture Connects should be owned by Hampshire’s cultural sector, positioned as a strategic champion for arts and heritage across the region. By uniting voices from local theatres, galleries, festivals, creative businesses, landscapes and museums, it seeks to advocate for culture within broader county priorities, from economic development to health and education, and ensure creative perspectives help shape long-term plans. As devolution progresses, Culture Connects is also an important vehicle for collaboration with peers in the Solent cities and on the Isle of Wight. Together we must achieve a united voice to promote sustained investment and a coordinated strategy across the new strategic authority, to support economic growth, social prosperity and pride-in-place.

Our vision is culture without boundaries: rooted in place, shaped by the distinctiveness and diversity of our communities, yet built on the understanding that together, we are greater than the sum of our parts.

My message to leaders, funders, and partners is simple: let’s be bold, and let’s be collaborative. The people of Hampshire, Portsmouth, Southampton and the Isle of Wight deserve nothing less. Culture doesn’t fit neatly within postcode boundaries and neither should our ambitions. Culture is the glue, the DNA, of our society. It sustains us through challenges and it’s what makes our region a place where people want to live, work, invest, and visit.

Together, let’s ensure culture and creativity remain at the heart of our collective future.