'It's a significant moment' - Creative Crawley founder makes rallying call for people to invest and champion culture in Crawley

The arts charity supports creative people and makes surprising art works happen in the town and on Friday (March 28) they launched their new space in County Mall and also their Spring programme.

The space, in unit 79/80 of the shopping centre, is a pop-up cultural space in partnership with Audi Active and funded by the arts council and has a flexible gallery and performance and hang-out areas.

But the space is only funded until June 22, 2025.

And with the loss of the Crawley Town Centre Business Improvement District and the future of local government to be decided, Louise made an impassioned speech at the launch about the future of culture in Crawley.

“It's a significant moment for arts and culture in Crawley,” she said. “It feels like we're at a fork in the road. There's a year or so left on the Towns Fund project, a cultural port of feasibility study is practically complete, a cultural strategy for the town almost done.

“Will we be in a combined authority with Surrey or in a mayoral authority with Brighton & Hove and Sussex by June next year, 2026? Who knows? But I know which one I'd prefer.

“The partners involved here have decisions to make. Trust, invest in and support the collaborative creative community here to move forwards and positively impact the reputation of the town and the residents who live here or make choices to invest elsewhere, block innovation and allow arts and culture to remain a nice-to-have tucked away in the back end of a shopping mall.

“Evidence shows that it takes time to capitalise on initial investments like this. There's momentum here. “We must harness it or the moment will pass. We live in challenging times where the President of the United States can take over the chairmanship of a major arts centre in the US in the blink of an eye. “Artists feeling unsafe to take risks in a context of trans and homophobia, racism and sexism. Where a small number of people are able to decide what art should be allowed in a place based on personal preference rather than celebrating diversity and difference.

“Arts events in Crawley have had to be cancelled recently due to threats of violent protest. A unity pledge has been created by Crawley Borough Council in which community groups have pledged their commitment to diversity which is a really positive move. We are in a place where difficult budget decisions are having to be made. We are all working in challenging circumstances. The arts community in Crawley are experiencing these challenges globally and locally.”

Recently, Crawley Town Centre BID’s renewal was voted down. It had been running since 2020 and confidence was high that it would be renewed for another five years. But that confidence was dashed earlier this month when a ballot of its various members saw them vote against its renewal, effectively ending the BID.

Louise said: “The loss of Crawley Town Centre Business Improvement District is a massive blow to arts and culture in this town. I want to thank Wendy [Bell] and Sam [Murray] who are here for the work that they've done.

“Crawley Town Centre Business Improvement District I would argue has been one of the biggest investors in the arts in this town apart from UK Government and Arts Council England. And so my question to leave you with is this. Do you want Crawley to be a progressive, healthy and economically flourishing town? If the answer to this is yes, then please invest in, support, engage in and champion culture. It's the only way.”

For more information on Creative Crawley and how to get involved, visit creativecrawley.com.

You can watch Louise Blackwell’s speech in the video at the top of this page.