Of Riders and Running Horses by Still House at Mayfest 2016. Produced by MAYK. Photo credit: Paul Blakemore
Synopsis
Over the next decade Bristol City Centre and Frome Gateway regeneration areas will be undergoing their most significant period of change for a generation.
The City Centre (Broadmead area) will be evolving from primarily retail to an inclusive, sustainable and reconnected place for everybody ‘…with vibrant cultural facilities and a thriving evening economy, whilst at the same time somewhere to call home.’
Neighbouring Frome Gateway will be delivering thousands of new and improved homes, workspaces, and community and public space to better meet the needs of the local community and the city. Using this as an opportunity to celebrate and re-connect with an enhanced river Frome.
With multiple developments at scale coming forward across both areas which trigger Bristol City Council Public Art Policy, the council is encouraging an ambitious joined-up approach supported with a ten-year Public Art and Cultural Activation Toolkit.
Developed through an engaged process, the Toolkit includes a menu of ideas to inspire and guide developers, strategic partners, and local organisations and groups wanting to initiate, fund-raise and work with artists and creatives on their own projects.
The Public Art and Cultural Activation Toolkit 2025-35 is a call to action to ‘transform Bristol’s City Centre and Frome Gateway neighbourhoods to be filled with public life and creative activity for everyone. Celebrating what’s already here, welcoming communities and visitors of the present and future, nurturing nature, and growing skills and opportunities.
It lays out an ambitious, collaborative ‘growth through culture’ approach bringing together developers, cultural organisations, artists and local stakeholders to deliver creative projects for positive change.
It responds to the strategic documents guiding the evolution of these different but adjacent areas: the City Centre Development and Delivery Plan and the Frome Gateway Strategic Framework.
Aligned to the council’s public art and planning policy and Bristol’s new Local Plan, the Toolkit provides place principles and menus of ideas with the aim of:
- Guiding public art and public realm development and activation within these areas through the planning process
- Inspiring and empowering local culture and community groups wanting to undertake their own cultural activations
- Building the foundations for longer term ambitious projects and strategic partnerships
It has been devised through an engaged process and proposes an ambitious joined up approach, ranging from smaller, quicker to achieve ideas to broad brush ambitious concepts realisable through strategic partnerships and co-investment in the future.
The Toolkit is part of a wider Bristol approach where public art and culture are seen as playing multiple intersected roles throughout longterm, complex regeneration programmes. This includes creatively engaging and listening, animating high streets and public realm alongside change and disruption, supporting vibrancy and visitor economy through change, testing ideas through temporary interventions and meanwhile uses, and taking citizens on the journey as different areas evolve.
This approach advocates for both the economic and social value of public art and cultural activation.
The economic value of arts and culture interventions has recently been demonstrated in the City Centre area through the High Street Recovery programme where, for every £1 invested, £4.50 additional spend was generated.
Since the introduction of the Public Services (Social Value) Act in 2012, councils have a legal obligation to consider how procurement and delivery of contracts might secure additional Social Value for their area. There is also a growing recognition amongst developers of the benefits that can accrue by pursuing social value through mechanisms like creative uses and workspaces.
The Public Art and Cultural Activation Toolkit will be published in October 2025
Bristol’s refreshed approach to culture-linked regeneration will be a key strand in the city’s new Cultural Strategy due to complete summer 2026.
"Culture is the heart of placemaking, it is the joy that creates a sense of belonging. In regeneration, a culture driven approach ensures inclusive, vibrant places where people and nature coexist sustainably."Councillor Ani Stafford-Townsend, Lead for Culture
Vision for the City Centre
With 52% of the City Centre area being redeveloped to enable 2,500 new homes and at least 5,000 new residents, retail consolidated and re-imagined, and 62% of the road network impacted by initiatives to improve sustainable transport and enable installation of the city’s environmental Heat Network; the strategy considers the vital role of public art and cultural activation in a prolonged period of change and potential disruption for this regional centre as well as alongside construction and completion.
In the City Centre, public art and cultural activation needs to shift perceptions from disruption to transformation.
Bringing local communities, businesses, residents and visitors on the journey as a shopping quarter evolves into a diverse and mixed-use city centre.
Projects should animate a joyful public realm and find places for culture on ground floors, provide significant moments of welcome and wayfinding, connect with nature, and hardwire in positive social impact approaches.
"Have ambition, beauty, be extraordinary, mind-blowing – the wow factor."City Centre vision
Vision for Frome Gateway
The diversity and inclusivity of Frome Gateway’s community and mix of activities, it’s and re-connection with an enhanced river Frome, will be celebrated as the area’s greatest strengths and represent the foundations of its unique character and identity.
In Frome Gateway, public art and cultural activation needs to be a set of ‘co-created on common ground’ projects that focus on making the area more navigable, legible and convivial, while continuing to celebrate its ‘story of place’.
Projects should amplify Frome Gateway as an ‘engine house’ of cultural production, creative and maker spaces, address local social and economic inequalities, and seek to reconnect to the River Frome and make it part of the neighbourhood.
"Don’t forget to preserve the grassroots energy, inclusivity and accessibility that define existing spaces in Frome Gateway."Frome Gateway vision
