Culture, creativity and heritage makes Torbay a better place in which to live, work, learn and visit. Torbay Culture was set up with support from Arts Council England to provide strategic leadership for the local culture sector, and progress the cultural strategy which is focused around people and place.
KNOWLEDGE SHARE
Over the past decade Torbay Culture has brought people together from across different sectors to explore cultural policy, ideas, and innovation.
Scroll down to access evaluation and analysis of our programmes. We also include occasional research conducted by partners that we have supported, or in which we have participated.
Most material provides evidence of the impact of our work, including the Great Place Scheme (2017-20), the culture, health and wellbeing programmes (2016-21), and our response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Create To Recover (2020). You can read more about our projects and activity under Our Work.
Image: Unsplash, Kuma Kum
University of Exeter: Creative Industries Innovation in Seaside Resorts and Country Towns
During 2022, Torbay Culture and Enterprise South West (part of the TDA group) supported the research being conducted by Lucy McFadzean, Gabriella Giannachi and Joanne Evans at the University of Exeter. They researched creative industries across Cornwall and Devon, with a case study focus on Torbay. Their findings were published in September 2022. The policy briefing draws on qualitative research from the University of Exeter, funded by the Policy & Evidence Centre.
Evaluation of Torbay’s Great Place Scheme
The final evaluation of Torbay’s Great Place Scheme (2017-20) can be accessed below. The report was written by independent evaluator Claire Gulliver, and contains analysis of the Scheme’s outcomes, and ripple effect mapping. These ripple maps are detailed, so there are two versions: a lower resolution copy which is speedier to download (where the ripple effect maps are not shown in detail), and a higher resolution copy where the maps are shown.
Connections Between Culture, Health & Wellbeing in Torbay
Since our inception, Torbay Culture has worked with partners to enable and commission work that supports creative and cultural approaches to health and wellbeing. The materials below include the report ‘Connections Between Culture Health & Welbeing in Torbay’ (2020) and an evaluation published in 2021 of the Creative Transitions programme co-designed with young people (2020).
Connections Between Culture Health & Wellbeing in Torbay and case studies: This report reviews the changing policy context, including social prescribing, and detailed analysis and evaluation of the Arts on Referral programme, supported by the Health Foundation, Arts Council England, and partners from the NHS, public health, local government and creative sectors.
Creative Transitions: evaluation report and associated case studies of Creative Transitions - supporting the wellbeing of young people through co-designed cultural activity. The report includes the case studies from these projects delivered in 2020. If you want to download individual case studes you can do so as well, below.
Evaluation of ‘Create To Recover’ programme
In response to the coronavirus pandemic, Torbay Culture initiated a programme we called ‘Create To Recover’ to support local creative practitioners during 2020. With funding from the Arts Council COVID-19 emergency response fund, we were able to offer small awards to a series of artist led projects which brought local people together (socially distanced and digitally). Read the evaluation below.
Torbay Audience Evaluation Research
As part of the Great Place Scheme, Torbay Culture commissioned South West Museum Development to work across Torbay’s cultural organisations and support them to conduct audience evaluation, collecting audience data throughout 2019.
The aims were to introduce light-touch, sustainable data practices across the bay’s organisations whilst establishing the clearest picture to date of Torbay’s audiences: who are they, what motivates them, what do they like and dislike, and so on. Ten organisations participated in the audience data collection and almost 3,400 survey responses were gathered between April and December.
A place-wide approach allows for informed strategic planning across the bay and lets individual organisations benchmark their own audiences with others locally.
2019 Culture Conference papers
Structured around Torbay’s ten-year Cultural Strategy Enjoy, Talk, Do, Be and the Great Place Scheme themes of Building Resilience, Changing Lives, Engaging Audiences and Shaping Place, our conference explored issues that are relevant for Torbay - people and place. Attendees heard from inspirational speakers and learnt more about the changing context in which we are working.
Presentations from the day:
The Art in the Everyday (Celia Atherton OBE)
Everywhere is Somewhere (Stephen Boyce, National Lottery Heritage Fund) - sample images and transcript
Shaping the next ten years: draft strategy 2020-30 (Simon Jutton, Arts Council England)
Place and Prosperity (Alan Denby, TDA)
People, Place and Purpose (Karen Jones and Jo Colin, Active Devon)
Cultural Volunteering Toolkit
Torbay Culture set up the Torbay Culture Ambassadors programme to support arts, culture and heritage organisations and events across Brixham, Paignton and Torquay. Its purpose is to champion Torbay and its cultural scene, and to provide a ‘go to’ group of people for those organisations and events that require the valuable support of well-informed, positive volunteers. As part of this programme, we developed a Volunteer Toolkit, which shares good practice for cultural organisations that host (or want to host) volunteers:
Cultural Tourism: Re-imagined Experiences, Itineraries and Guides
The Cultural Tourism project seeks to motivate more visitors though re-imagined experiences, itineraries and guides across Torbay. In this report, research findings are summarised and a new vision is revealed through 4 experience pillars. These went into testing and formation of cultural tourism products during 2019:
Published December 2018. Any distribution must include the following attribution: L Gardiner and K Marshall (2018) Cultural Tourism: Motivating tourists with re-imagined experiences, itineraries and guides. Commissioned by Torbay Culture and the English Riviera BID Company, as part of Torbay’s Great Place Scheme – funded by Arts Council England and the National Lottery Heritage Fund.
‘The 99’: Motivating local residents to attend heritage and arts more often
The 99 project provides insight into the relationship between local residents and the arts and heritage venues and events in Torbay. It provides findings on how to better reach, motivate, and sustain audience attendance to venues and events.
Published November 2018. Any distribution must include the following attribution: L Gardiner and K Peters (2018) The 99: Motivating local residents to attend arts and heritage more often. Commissioned by Torbay Culture, as part of Torbay’s Great Place Scheme - funded by Arts Council England and the National Lottery Heritage Fund.
Supporting documents:
Recruitment Survey
Summer Survey
Winter Survey
Pre-Event Survey
Post-Event Survey
Example Attendance Confirmation
Example Observation & Focus Groups Guide
Enterprising Approaches
How can organisations and individuals develop a more entrepreneurial approach to achieving their goals? Presentations from our July 2017 event.
Making Spaces Work - Ed Whitelaw, RIO
Grant Funding As Seed Funding - Claire Honey, RIO
New Commissioning - Jonathan Clitheroe, RIO
Enterprising Models - Jonathan Clitheroe, RIO
Community Shares - Jonathan Clitheroe, RIO
Creative coastline
Explore the role of arts and culture in coastal place-making. Presentations and resources from our November 2016 event.
1 inch to the left: Seaside regeneration in a town of glitter & grit – Jenny Rutter, LeftCoast
“The rock connects us”: creative place-making around UNESCO designated sites – Daisy Sutcliffe and John Wokersien
Connecting people to the coast: place-making through architecture, design and the built environment – Richard Maddock, Kay Elliott
England’s Seafood Coast – Carolyn Custerson, English Riviera Tourism Company
Discover England’s South West Coast Path- Esther Pearson, South West Coast Path Association
More resources
Creative and digital industries
How we can work together to support sectors such as design, hi-tech, digital and gaming, art, advertising, publishing, performance, film and TV in Torbay and beyond? Presentations and resources from our July 2016 event.
What do we mean by creative and digital industries and how is Arts Council England supporting them? – Pippa Warin, Arts Council England
Creative England: the business of Creativity. How are we helping the creative digital sector to become the UK’s fastest growing industry? – Kate Adam, Creative England
Culture, Health and Wellbeing: Cultural commissioning work
How the public sector can work more effectively with arts and cultural organisations? Presentations from our April 2016 event.
Cultural Commissioning; A Public Health perspective, Debra Lapthorne, Public Health England
The National Context, Jessica Harris, NCVO
Just Ask; Creative interventions to address male suicide in Torbay, Nathalie Palin
Cultural tourism
How can we increase the tourism impact of Torbay's cultural offer? Presentations and resources from our Jan 2016 event.
Agatha Christie’s Riviera – Carolyn Custerson, English Riviera Tourism Company
Cultural experiences in the Geopark – Nick Powe, English Riviera Geopark Organisation
Fishstock and Brixham’s fishing heritage – Superintendent John Anderson, The Fishermen’s Mission
How arts projects contribute to a place’s identity – Claire Doherty, Situations
Learning and culture
Explore creative and cultural learning in formal and informal settings. Presentations and resources from our Oct 2015 event.
Get on track – Active Devon
Learning, growing and fun – Play Torbay
Sound communities – Connect, engage, inspire
Sound communities audio – listen with your eyes closed!
Key changes to children and young people’s service delivery in Torbay – Torbay Council
Funding sources for culture
Focus on funding, partnership working and income diversification. Presentations and resources from our Jul 2015 event.
Living well
Our first exploration of culture, health and well-being. Presentations and resources from our Mar 2015 event.