Arts and Culture are recognised as powerful drivers for cohesive, safe, sustainable communities

Broken communities hurt the public purse, demotivate citizens and can become nurseries for gangs, terrorists, drug abuse, criminality and knife crime. We are all increasingly focussed on "place making". The term, however, is all too often used loosely. Our definition is "building environments and encouraging mind-sets that support cohesive, confident, proud and sustainable local communities". Even if we all agree on what we are talking about there are reasons to examine what the term really means as Stella Duffy points out in this programme. In the last 100 years, national and local government has all too often, destroyed, ignored and under resourced existing communities and done little or nothing to help in the development of new communities. Now we understand that broken communities can become home to disillusioned, de-motivated people un-coupled from the democratic process and sceptical of what society can offer them.  Sharing creative activities can drive place making, can "pop-up" over night, can mobilise a community's own resources and produce spectacular and timely results. All the more reason then why those in power who hold the national, regional and local purse strings should support such initiatives.