Issue - meetings

Option 5 - To support the Southampton 2025 expression of interest for the UK City of Culture bid by confirming the Isle of Wight as a regional partner and providing an initial £10,000 contribution for this purpose, from within the existing budgets available for strategic partnerships.

To instruct council staff to work with the bid team to identify the most appropriate programme of activities to take place, should the bid be successful, to support the Island's cultural regeneration and maximise the economic and cultural benefits for the Island.

Should the SO2025 bid be successful, delegate the decision regarding further council support of £50,000 to support Island implementation of the bid's proposed activity programme to the Cabinet member for Regeneration and Business Development. then the additional funding as a regional partner of £10,000 per annum for the five years up to and including 2026 be the first call on the council’s regeneration budget in each of those years.

The Cabinet member for Business and Regeneration thanked staff for dealing with the matter quickly. Cultural regeneration was one of the key priorities of the council and this was an opportunity to bring forward partnership arrangements with Southampton City Council. Cities of Culture were high profile for regeneration and through place plans the island had shown that it had a sense of pride. A meeting had been held with the bid director who had been overwhelmed with what the island could offer. It was proposed that an application would go to government in the next week, then in September applications would be shortlisted to six, following which a full business case would be prepared. The final six would receive £50,000 from government to help put their business case together. In January 2022 the final two would be decided and the final one announced in May 2022. This was an exciting opportunity which Southampton had been working on for a number of years. It would support cultural regeneration on the island and promote its biosphere status. It would bring together many cultural organisations on the island together. It was reported that 30 per cent of employment on the island was in the cultural sector. The Corporate Scrutiny Committee had welcomed the significant opportunity afforded by the Council’s involvement and fully supported the proposed recommendation. It was clarified that the council would only give £10,000 per year if the Southampton bid was successful.