ABSTRACT
Area. The Roger de Haan Charitable Trust started funding the purchase and refurbishment of run-down properties in the area through The Creative Foundation. This was set up in 2002 and now has a staff of 19 (20 if you include Baxter the office dog). Since that time 300 jobs have been created and a remarkable 90 buildings have been restored. These include the Quarterhouse, a performance venue hosting music and theatre alongside a wide range of studios, shops and business spaces. The charitable trust leases refurbished space to the Creative Foundation at a peppercorn rent, allowing them to rent it at affordable rents to artists while also generating an income. The income has been used to run two internationallyacclaimed Art Triennials, an annual book festival and a year-round performance programme. The Creative Foundation has also developed Folkestone Artworks, a permanent contemporary art collection of growing significance. The creation of an ersatz cultural quarter from scratch using the wealth generated from selling
holidays to old people shouldn’t work. Creative quarters surely need to be forged through the struggle of artists colonising space that no one else wants, not cosseted in expensively refurbished buildings? But in a world of austerity when public funding for the arts is disappearing fast, the Creative Quarter in Folkestone is a remarkable beacon of excellence and artistic independence. The quarter has filled with artists and businesses and they are now making the area their own. Not every town has such a sympathetic benefactor, but Folkestone’s Creative Quarter shows that there is a route to arts-led regeneration that doesn’t require a Lottery-funded gallery.
