Supporting the development of High Peak's first borough-wide Culture Strategy through creative consultation, partnership development and place-based research, creating a shared vision for culture rooted in the borough's landscapes and shaped by its people.
The opportunity
High Peak Borough Council commissioned a new borough-wide Culture Strategy to establish a long-term vision for culture, creativity and heritage across the district.
Working as part of a wider consultancy team led by The Hamilton Project, Local brought expertise in creative placemaking, community engagement and cultural development, helping ensure the strategy reflected the distinct character of High Peak's towns, villages and landscapes while recognising culture as a driver of wellbeing, regeneration, learning, environmental sustainability and economic growth.
The commission recognised that High Peak already possessed a rich cultural ecology, from internationally recognised festivals and theatres to grassroots organisations, volunteers, artists and creative businesses. The challenge was not to create culture, but to connect it more effectively, strengthen partnerships and establish a shared framework for future investment and collaboration.
What Local brought
Our contribution centred on ensuring the strategy was grounded in place and shaped by the people who live, work and create in the High Peak.
Working alongside High Peak Borough Council, the wider consultancy team and local partners, we helped to:
• Design and facilitate Creative Forums in Glossop, Buxton and New Mills, creating space for artists, residents, creative businesses and community organisations to shape the strategy together.
• Engage local cultural organisations, practitioners and stakeholders through interviews, workshops and creative consultation.
• Champion a broad definition of culture that recognised everyday creativity alongside professional arts, heritage, libraries, museums, creative industries and community activity.
• Bring learning from initiatives such as Glossop Creates to demonstrate how local creative networks can strengthen participation, collaboration and civic pride.
• Contribute ideas around creative infrastructure, partnership working and place-based cultural leadership that connected culture with regeneration, education, health, tourism and environmental sustainability.
• Help shape practical proposals that moved beyond vision-setting towards long-term delivery, including Creative Forums, a High Peak Place Partnership, creative space development and a Culture Champion role.
Throughout the commission, our approach reflected one of Local's core principles: meaningful cultural strategies emerge through collaboration, conversation and shared ownership rather than consultation alone.
What changed
The resulting strategy establishes the first shared vision for culture across the High Peak, recognising creativity as an essential part of everyday life and positioning culture as a cross-cutting contributor to community wellbeing, regeneration, education, tourism, climate action and local identity.
It proposes a new delivery model centred around a High Peak Place Partnership, supported by local Creative Forums operating through a hub-and-spoke approach that connects towns with surrounding villages. Together these structures create new opportunities for collaboration, shared investment and local cultural leadership.
The strategy also introduces a series of practical recommendations including:
• High Peak's first borough-wide Culture Strategy
• Creative consultation involving more than 250 residents, artists, organisations and stakeholders
• Creative Forums delivered across Buxton, Glossop and New Mills
• Place Partnership and Creative Forum delivery model developed
• Practical action plan linking culture with regeneration, education, health and tourism
• Framework designed to support long-term cultural investment and partnership working
Rather than producing a document to sit on a shelf, the strategy provides a practical framework for long-term partnership working and cultural development across the borough.
Why it matters
For Local, this commission reinforced the importance of connecting cultural strategy with local action.
The strongest strategies are not simply policy documents; they create the relationships, structures and confidence needed for communities, organisations and public partners to work together over time.
Many of the ideas explored through this commission – including Creative Forums, place-based partnership models, creative infrastructure and cultural leadership—have continued to inform our wider practice. They have influenced subsequent work including Glossop Creates, Culture Labs in Kirklees and our approach to neighbourhood cultural development, demonstrating how learning from one place can help shape more resilient and connected cultural ecologies elsewhere.
Ultimately, the High Peak Culture Strategy is about creating the conditions for culture to thrive: connecting people, places and organisations around a shared vision that celebrates local identity while creating new opportunities for participation, creativity and long-term investment.
Project highlights
• developing affordable creative spaces and meanwhile use programmes;
• strengthening creative learning and career pathways;
• protecting important cultural assets;
• improving visibility through shared marketing and communications;
• embedding creativity within planning, regeneration and public policy;
• exploring future Arts Council England Place Partnership investment.
