Issue 84 / Dec 2017/Jan 2018

EDITORIAL
EBGBS (Keith Ainsworth)
“In order to make
progress, creative
artists need
opportunities. For
musicians, that
means venues”
This is an issue about space.
Space is the oxygen that creative businesses need
to survive, and we are surrounded by it in our cities
and towns. Music venues, studios and workshops exist
side-by-side with our living and public spaces, maintaining a
dynamic mix of art and creativity that sits at the heart of Liverpool’s
cultural identity. Space to do, experiment and make noise is a key
component in a city of ingenuity and opportunity.
But space is increasingly becoming a final frontier for those
smaller businesses caught in the crosshairs of residential and
commercial developments. You can hardly blame cash-strapped
local authorities for recognising that the growth areas of university
attendance and retail opportunities bring in much-needed
injections of cash, even if this does mean selling off prime real
estate in the city centre to private developers. Space used in the
creative sector brings, on average, a much lower and longer term
return on investment than major retail or residential projects, which
makes the precarious job of balancing the books part of a broader
vision of what kind of place we want our city to be. What we can
make sure of, however, is that future decisions are made with the
interests of the creative community at heart.
In this issue, we want to draw your attention to the multiplicity
of space we currently have at our disposal: how varied and fit for a
multitude of purposes it is; how we can protect this space, learn to
value it and create the conditions for small businesses to flourish in
it; how we can appreciate the range of uses these various spaces
have, and learn how best to represent their interests; and how we
need more space to be put to use by a greater number of creative
businesses, in a greater variety of interesting ways.
Crucially, there are plans afoot that give us the opportunity to
achieve these aims. The Ten Streets development is the principle
one, an ambitious plan from Liverpool City Council to develop the
area north of the city centre over the next 15 to 20 years. The
draft proposal of the Ten Streets Spatial Regeneration Framework,
to give it its grand title, aims to “transform over 125 acres of
Liverpool’s Northern City Fringe into a vibrant creative quarter
located within the Liverpool City Enterprise Zone that will drive
future prosperity and enhance the city’s status as an international
destination with a unique offer and character”. The Framework
includes the renovation of the Stanley Dock complex, Peel
Holdings’ Liverpool Waters site along the docklands, and a new
football stadium for Everton at Bramley-Moore Dock. At its heart
is a designated “creative hub” in the area between Oil Street and
Saltney Street, dubbed the “Ten Streets character zone”.
Whatever fancy name is given to it, this is an area teeming
with possibility; there are dozens of empty warehouses and
industrial units packed into this former docking heartland that are
ripe for appropriation. These are the spaces our DIY, independent
businesses should flood into and take hold of the narrative of
what a creative hub actually is. Now that the Baltic Triangle seems
to be more suited to tech and digital businesses, the Ten Streets
development should, in principle, be our future hothouse of noisy,
creative ingenuity. Liverpool has a real chance to make a statement
with this development – if it wants to. It’s up to us to realise it in
whatever way we want.
This northwards expansion of the city centre does, however,
come with a note of caution. It was pointed out by the proprietors
of Drop The Dumbulls Gallery, which falls inside the Ten Streets
character zone, that their building on Dublin Street – which they
own – had been marked for “positive intervention and re-use”
in the draft version of the Spatial Development Framework. This
sounded suspiciously like a gentle way of saying ‘demolition’. After
the Dumbulls collective’s successful campaign during the proposal’s
consultation, highlighting their concerns, Liverpool City Council’s
planning team appear to have heeded the venue’s apprehensions
and have ensured (albeit via Twitter) they will make sure that
Dumbulls is protected in any future development of the area. This is
the kind of positive dialogue we need in projects of this magnitude,
and we hope the same concerns of smaller leaseholders, such
as Meraki and North Shore Troubadour, are also heard in future
proposals.
In order to make projects such as these a success, we must
have a vision for what the overall picture is. In the accompanying
report you received with this issue of Bido Lito!, we believe there
is the blueprint for what this vision could be – or, at the very least,
some guiding pointers to what that blueprint could become. The
findings in the report were gathered and researched by a team
from the Liverpool John Moores University off the back of the
Liverpool, Music City? event we held at Constellations in May of this
year. A new music strategy is currently being written by Liverpool
City Council, and the way it is implemented will directly impact on
the way developments like Ten Streets will be used. Now, more
than ever, it is imperative to understand how our creative and music
community works, so that we can better drive its future growth.
Featured in this magazine are a set of images of the spaces
we currently have at our disposal for creative endeavours: the
familiar rooms and venues where musicians perform, create and
have the freedom to form identities. These spaces are crucial cogs
in a creative ecosystem, yet their importance can’t be measured
by the (relatively) meagre profits they generate. Instead, we
must value their role in providing an environment where any
seed of creativity can flourish. These types of spaces can only
survive where the external pressures or expectations on them as
businesses is managed in such a way that their value can’t solely
be quantified in financial bottom lines. In short, there has to be
some provision for creative people to just create, to learn their
craft, without the Damoclean sword of profit hanging over them.
In order to make progress, creative artists need opportunities. For
musicians, that means venues.
The collectives that form around spaces like all those
mentioned in this issue provide vital networks of support and
encouragement that allow great art and creativity to bloom.
Not only that, but their voices are louder when they’re speaking
in unison. We come from many different backgrounds, but we
have a collective voice – and, as shown by the work of Drop The
Dumbulls and the Liverpool, Music City? report, we can use it to
apply pressure and to ignite positive change. !
Christopher Torpey / @CATorp
Editor
09