Policy WS/CH: Cultural and creative hubs

6.56. The Greater Cambridge Cultural Infrastructure Strategy identifies the area’s cultural and creative industries as a major and growing economic force, employing approximately 14,000 people. This makes up 8.5% of total employment in the sub-region. Greater Cambridge is therefore considered to be a creative cluster consisting of many cultural or creative hubs and districts. The area is also currently home to nine Arts Council England National Portfolio Organisations, which are considered by Arts Council England to be regionally or nationally significant for their cultural output, strategic role or value to their local communities.

6.57. The strategy also highlights the many benefits derived from culture including those related to improving everyday health, wellbeing and place-making. Social prescribing has become an established method of preventative care through the physical and mental health benefits of participating in culture with other people.

6.58. Cultural infrastructure within new and existing development not only enhances the social fabric of areas but also contributes to long-term value creation, attracting investment and fostering sustainable growth. Beyond the standard economic benefits of other industry clusters, creative clusters are attractive for the wider benefits they can bring to places, supporting high levels of cultural activity, the evening and nighttime economy and an area’s sense of place that help these spaces become more attractive to live, visit or set up a business.

6.59. Any proposal for a new cultural or creative hub within designated centres should be able to clearly demonstrate suitable capacity to bring together and support an ecosystem of cultural activities and, or creative artists or creative/cultural organisations (public or commercial). To act as a genuine cultural or creative hub, they should feature/host a mix of:

• Affordable creative workspace;
• Learning infrastructure;
• Collaborative spaces;
• Affordable accommodation;
• Affordable temporary accommodation for visiting artists;
• Cultural attractions; and
• Skills, networking and business support programmes.

6.60. Examples include an arts centre, a performance venue, a national and, or internationally recognised museum, a creative workspace space supporting creative businesses or artist workspaces or a community centre that supports cultural activities within the community. Increasingly, cultural infrastructure can be found in less traditional spaces, for example, public houses that provide performance venues with regular events; churches that provide space for community workshops; parks that host festivals; and offices that provide artist studios.

6.61. Affordable temporary accommodation for visiting artists normally offers low-cost (below market rate) studio spaces where artists can live and work for a few weeks to months. These support artists who live outside Greater Cambridge to come and apply their craft in a different location to their normal place of residence, temporarily. These spaces are therefore considered an ancillary component of a cultural hub and therefore the number of these units provided should be limited to no more than two units, subject to local residential amenity. The use of these spaces may be controlled through planning conditions to protect residential amenity and ensure they are not used as permanent accommodation.

6.62. Areas with more than one cultural or creative hub, close enough to form interrelated links, activities or trips – would form a cultural/creative district. These may include several public-facing educational institutions such as art colleges and schools, related to cultural and creative industries, or spaces providing and supporting cultural activities including museums, theatres and other event performance spaces.

6.63. The scale of these districts can vary, from individual streets with high levels of cultural activity to larger mixed use regeneration schemes, to large parts of a city, to form a cultural quarter. Areas with a high concentration of cultural spaces providing a broad range of cultural activities, including space for the evening and nighttime economy, especially those performing an important sub-regional function, would normally be regarded as a cultural quarter. In Cambridge, this would comprise of the city centre’s historic central area including the proposed Civic Quarter, centered around the market area and the surrounding cultural performance spaces including the Corn Exchange along Wheeler Street, the Arts Theatre and those entertainment and performance venues and spaces in and around Trinity Street, the museums along Free School Lane and Pembroke Street, Market Passage and Sidney Street.

6.64. Other cultural hubs and districts across the area also make an important contribution to the area’s cultural and economic performance, by hosting a mix of public, social and private enterprises. They can also bring a unique dynamic to an area, fostering and supporting placemaking. Consequently, these cultural hubs and districts can help to develop and support the high streets in the area by adapting their appeal to changing retail and leisure trends.

6.65. Town centres need to be able to offer people and businesses something of interest that the internet alone cannot provide. This might include the co-location and collaboration of cultural providers and associated businesses. The space requirements for digital creative businesses often include smaller office spaces which can be accommodated on upper floors above shops, close to larger cultural venues. Aside from attracting more employment opportunities into these centres, they are also a compatible use in areas that host many evening and nighttime venues which are often a source of noise from people visiting the area.

For further guidance on how to submit comments, please see the Representation Guidance Note.

All comments must be received by 25 September 2026 at 5pm.