READING Council has revealed it has been awarded an £85,000 grant from Historic England as part of the Reading High Streets Heritage Action Zone (HSHAZ) to create and deliver community-led cultural activities within the HSHAZ area high streets over the next three years.
Reading is one of more than 60 towns within the HSHAZ national programme to receive a share of £6 million for their cultural work within the scheme.
Grants of up to £120,000 have been awarded to local arts organisations for cultural activity on each high street.
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Reading’s High Streets Heritage Action Zone team, led by Reading Borough Council and other partners, including The Museums Partnership Reading, will run a programme of exciting new cultural activities to complement the wider project over the next 3 years in three historic areas of Reading.
Planned activities include an open call for cultural community projects in the Oxford Road area, continuing the work of a recent pilot project ‘Re-imagining the high street through your stories’ which will conclude this summer with three new art projects courtesy of local artists Baker Street Productions, Gemma Anusa and Caroline Streatfield.
With the new funding, work can be continued from the pilot project on Oxford Road; grass roots community groups and cultural organisations will have the opportunity to lead cultural activities as well as having access to a mentoring scheme that aims to support groups to access funding in the future.
Other activities will be focused in the St Mary’s Butts/Castle Street and Market Place/London Street heritage areas, with the theme of exploring and telling the hidden histories of these historic high streets areas through community co-produced research and resulting in art installations in the local area.
This is part of the four-year-long High Streets Heritage Action Zones’ Cultural Programme, led by Historic England, in partnership with Arts Council England and the National Lottery Heritage Fund.
The Cultural Programme aims to make our high streets more attractive, engaging and vibrant places for people to live, work and spend time.
The council’s wider High Streets Heritage Action Zone programme will run for 3 years until March 31, 2024.
The project aims to breathe new life into the radial high street areas of Reading off of the immediate town centre.
Cllr Rowland, Reading’s Lead for Culture, Heritage and Recreation, said: “I am absolutely thrilled we have been awarded a further £85,000 from Historic England to extend the cultural strand of our High Street Heritage project.
“We have already been incredibly fortunate to benefit from £806,500 funding from Historic England. Match funded to £1.6 million, this represents a significant boost to much deserving streets in and around our town centre.
“This further generous boost will allow us to extend the cultural strand of our wider project – which should see some exciting and creative arts activities emerge with local community groups and organisations.
"Exploring the culture of our heritage areas engenders feelings of pride, belonging and community. Those elements together make us all appreciate our high streets more and highlight them as places we want to spend more time in.
“Our Oxford Road pilot project has already begun to raise the profile of the area’s vibrant history and rich diversity, commemorated in the exiting work of three local artists – which will be revealed at the start of the summer. I’m eager to see how this can now grow in the other heritage areas of the town we are focusing on around St Mary’s Butts and the Market Place/London Street areas.
“Although we applied to the scheme last year under very different circumstances, we now know the impact of coronavirus is far-reaching and has already had major effects on high streets, including local businesses and their communities.
"This programme has already started to play an important role in the recovery of our high street areas and post Covid-19, we are fortunate that the programme is here at just the right time to be able to support these areas in the upcoming years."
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