Swimming With Arts

Nye Bevan Pool, Skelmersdale, 2023.

The year is 2099, and as a result of the Culture Wars, arts and culture have once again become the sole pastime and profession of a privileged few who live in Mega Cultural Complexes. Those unlucky enough not to have residency in these citadels of creativity are exiled to the region beyond, otherwise known as the Cursed Cultural Quarter, a barren and merciless area where cultural ecosystems can’t establish themselves, let alone flourish. Or at least that's the mashup of Judge Dredd and Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, Lisa Nandy, that my overactive imagination created after hearing the speech she gave at the Labour Party Conference in 2024. 

Nandy wasn't, of course, laying out her vision for a not-too-distant dystopian future populated by leather-clad, motorbike-riding anti-heroes, more's the pity, but rather the dire state of affairs regarding access to and infrastructure for arts and culture after 15 years of what she astutely described as the "cultural vandalism" carried out by the Tories. Nandy didn't stop there; she went on to explain how the Tories operated with "violent indifference" and "erased culture and creativity from our classrooms and communities", resulting in "choked off choices and chances for a generation." 

Nandy’s excoriating language wouldn’t have been out of place in the pages of 2000AD,  the comic magazine home of Judge Dredd, but she wasn’t wrong. Life was precarious for many people working in or engaging with the cultural sector under five Tory prime ministers, beginning with David Cameron in 2010 and ending with Rishi Sunak in 2024. If only it had ended there, but the cultural sector is still dealing with the aftermath of this period of "downgrading the arts", as writer Gareth Rubin puts it in his recent Guardian article, 'Impoverished authors are told they should do it for the love. Try telling that to a dentist', with implications such as a burned-out workforce, which Dr Laura Crossley is researching at the University of Leeds, and certain areas becoming "cultural deserts", according to Nandy.

So what exactly is a cultural desert? There’s no universally accepted definition right now, but with time, I'm confident it’ll join enshittification as the Macquarie Dictionary's word of the year. Similar to the process of enshittification itself, which involves "the gradual deterioration of a service", the cultural desert Nandy talks about is caused by "Running down the arts subjects, narrowing the curriculum and slashing council funding".

For those yet to visit, it'd be entirely understandable that someone who had only ever read trite articles that stereotype my hometown of Skelmersdale, or Skem if you prefer, as a ‘failed utopia’ of the 1960s new town building boom would conclude it must be a cultural desert. It’s true that its local authority, West Lancashire Borough Council, doesn’t currently have a cultural strategy, and it can't compete with the arts and culture spending power of its neighbours, the creative industries priority regions of Greater Manchester and Liverpool City Region, which are in another league altogether, just like Skelmersdale United and Liverpool FC (sorry, Skem United fans).

Yet, as David Attenborough will tell you, deserts can appear deceptively sedate to anyone who hasn't spent much time there. I live in Manchester now, but I return to Skem on a regular basis for one family thing or another. It was during one of these visits a couple of years ago that I learnt about the work of artists David Ball and Cora Glass, also known as Glassball, in the town to draw attention to its architectural and artistic heritage. Since then, I've spent time with David and Cora as they deliver Alternative Futures, “a collaborative three year artist led public art and place-based project that is shaped by the lived experience, past and present, of the predominantly working class communities of Skelmersdale, Lancashire.”

Spending time with David and Cora led to an introduction to Steven Horrocks, the manager of Skem's bustling music venue and studios, the E Rooms. I learnt about its critical role in providing access to arts and culture, as well as the challenges that come with running such a community interest company, funding being a major one. Speaking to LancsLive reporter Robert Macdonald in early 2024, Steven noted that the E Rooms doesn’t "receive any funding from the borough or county council." but is mostly self-funded, earning revenue through a mix of events, room rentals and crowd-funding.

During the same chat, Steven proposed safeguarding the future of Skem's access to arts and culture by converting the local swimming pool, which is set to be demolished and replaced, into an arts and cultural centre. No doubt some destination marketeers reading this would probably roll their eyes and consider such a centre in Skem a luxury not a necessity. But it’s not that outlandish a proposal, especially when you consider that similar-sized towns surrounding Skem have such assets. Locals in nearby Leigh have access to arts, culture and heritage through a number of local government-supported venues, including Leigh Spinners Mill, the Turnpike Gallery and Wigan and Leigh Archives.

The swimming pool, located in the heart of the community, is an integral and well-known feature of the new town's built environment. The E Rooms could reach more Skemmers and serve as a much-needed civic focal point if it operated out of such a central location. It could also provide dedicated space for exhibitions of the type that Glassball and Skelmersdale Heritage Society currently rely on the local library for, as well as storage for archives, in addition to ample room for some of the town's other arts, culture and heritage activities. 

With the healthcare and cultural sectors increasingly collaborating to boost wellbeing, surely the person after whom the swimming pool is named, none other than Labour Party giant and godfather of the NHS Nye Bevan, would've also been wholeheartedly in favour of such an asset.

Of course, none of this comes cheap, but then again, it never does. However, with a £150 million investment in Skem being led by Tawd Valley Developments, which might bring a train station to the town after nearly 70 years without one, as well as other amenities, there’s a sense of both transition and trepidation in the air. If this latest revamp can’t cover the cost of a new arts and cultural centre, whether it’s a repurposed swimming pool or something else, it may at the very least grab the attention of other investors and funders that can. 

As Baroness Margaret Hodge and her advisory panel begin the upcoming independent review of Arts Council England, which, according to the government press release, will “explore how to improve access to arts and culture in all areas of the country to drive access to opportunity”, I'd recommend that they visit places like Skem, where they’ll learn a great deal about what it takes to bulldoze barriers to arts and culture access and opportunities with limited resources, as well as the exciting prospect of what can be accomplished if support is increased.

The term 'cultural desert' will undoubtedly be used a lot during the review, but hopefully not to evoke images of a dystopia, but rather to acknowledge that some areas, even back in the heyday of New Labour, which Nandy praises in her speech, are yet to benefit from significant or sustained investment in arts and culture. Despite a lack of 'irrigation', grassroots cultural ecosystems have emerged and endured, thanks in part to the tenacious pursuit of social justice, the kind of which Nye Bevan was renowned for.