Arte e Cultura
Keeping London Creative
Recent figures released by Westminster Council show the terrifying rate that small office space is being lost to high end residential conversions. This is particularly challenging in London's Soho, long the birth place and home to so many of the country's great creative companies and performers.
Sir John Hegarty , Chair of SohoCreate, said
Tom Harvey MBE, CEO of SohoCreate, said
Signatories are from Soho's property development sectors and from across the creative industries including, film, fashion, television, games and theatre.
The text of the letter is as follows -
Yours sincerely
SohoCreate is a new creative festival for London . It's a festival about creative. SohoCreate champions creative people, the risks they take, the dreams they have and the journeys they are prepared to endure in order to be creative.
SohoCreate is a private company, with investors based in London and Canada . Investors include Westminster City Council.
http://sohocreate.co.uk/photos/
Soho's creative credentials began 450 years ago when the first Huguenot refugees and crafts people were welcomed to this neighbourhood in the heart of London . Its creative life has been well documented, from the early performances of Jagger, Hendrix and Daltry to the birth of Spandau Ballet; from the place Dickens wrote Tale of Two Cities to the place television was invented. Soho's creative companies now win an average of two Oscars a year and are responsible for 20% of London's new creative jobs. Their collective turnover is £7.5 billion nearly 10% of the entire country, and creative industry workforce numbers are 46,000.
Recent figures released by Westminster City Council on the loss of office space metreage and the gain of residential metreage can be found on page 4 here.
http://transact.westminster.gov.uk/docstores/publications_store/Mixed%20Use%20and%20Office%20to%20Residential%20Conversion.pdf
Contact
Tom Harvey
+44(0)20-7439-8819