For many years, Bexley has missed out on the significant economic dividend that comes from investing in cultural activity. A thriving network of arts organisations, venues and creative businesses is good for commerce in town centres, inward investment in the borough and jobs across Bexley.

The Borough has had the lowest levels of public arts funding of any London borough and has missed out on schemes to promote the growth of the creative industries in the Thames Estuary. But in recent years this has started to change with examples described below. A new strategy to build on this, aligned will be intrinsic to the wider objectives of the Council’s Growth Strategy.

• In 2022 the Bexley Culture Network was launched to support collaboration between 17 of the Borough’s Cultural organisations and to increase their collective visibility to funders, partners and supporters. The Culture Network has informed the development of this strategy and will be an important part of its successful delivery. The partnerships includes the following organisations: The Exchange, Three Rivers, TACO, Peabody, Bow Arts, Centrepieces, The Crossness Engines Trust, Ruined Theatre, Little Fish, Bexleyhealth BID, Sidcup BID, Arts Train, Theatre Box, South Asian Heritage Month, Bexley Music, Hall Place, The Red House, Lesnes Abbey, The Council’s Library Service, Bird College, Rose Bruford College and the London College of Performing Arts.
• Over the last decade The Exchange has established itself as a multi-use arts venue and creative workspace in Erith. With a business model combining public funding, commercial activity and member subscriptions The Exchange has invested over £3m in performances, exhibitions, studios, working with the community and local festivals. In 2023, The Exchange became Bexley’s first arts organisation to be admitted to Arts Council England’s National Portfolio of regularly funded organisations achieving over £100,000 of funding per year until 2027. The Exchange has made a significant contribution to culture in Bexley devising a cultural strategy for Erith Town centre, helping to establish Three Rivers (see below) and convening the Bexley Culture Network.
• In 2014 Lesnes Abbey secured £4.3m from the National Heritage Lottery Fund which enabled the site’s renovation and the construction of a Abbey Lodge multi-use events centre. Through this Lesnes has developed lasting relationships with arts organisations and community groups which have helped to establish it as a heritage attraction for visitors from across the borough and beyond. In 2023 Lesnes was featured on a TFL map of cultural attractions on the Elizabeth line. In 2025 Lesnes secured a further £250,000 from the National Lottery Heritage Fund for two years of events and activities marking the 500th anniversary of Lesnes Abbey. In the same period, the independently run Crossness Pumping Station, which opened to the public in 2015, has also attracted significant funding including, in 2016, a £2.7m investment from the National Heritage Lottery Fund.
• Since 2018 Peabody has made significant investments in culture infrastructure in Thamesmead. They include a £2.7m renovation of The Lakeside Centre, co-funded by Peabody, the Mayor of London’s London Economic Action Partnership (LEAP), Bow Arts and Arts Council England and the construction of The Nest a £10m library and community space in Cygnet Square. Peabody has become a major patron of arts organisations, artists and festivals in Bexley, supporting over 300 cultural events and paying over 1000 creatives to work on projects in the Thamesmead area. Peabody also revived the Thamesmead Festival, which has become a fixture on South East London’s cultural calendar. For every £1 Peabody invest in culture in Thamesmead, another £1.46 is spent by other partners and funders on cultural activities and buildings.
• In 2019 a consortium of local organisations led by Peabody established Three Rivers to ‘instigate a community-led step change in how arts and culture is made and experienced, building the capacity and ambition for excellent arts and culture in Bexley’. It is funded by Arts Council England, through its Creative People and Places programme, which focuses on areas of the country where involvement in arts and culture is below the national average. Three Rivers is now nationally recognised for its innovative approach to making ‘home grown culture’ with communities and has secured a 3-year, £1m investment from Arts Council England between 2026-2029, making it the best resourced arts organisation in the Borough.
• Throughout 2025 the London Borough of Bexley has been promoting the work of the Borough’s cultural organisations through its ‘#CelebratingBexley’ programme which marks the 60th anniversary of the creation of the Borough. The programme enabled The Bexley Culture Network, an association of 17 cultural organisations from across the borough, to secure £100,000 of funding from Arts Council England for Nightvisions - a programme of light themed arts events over the winter of 2025-26. The programme has been designed to improve collaboration among arts organisations in the Borough.
• Business Improvement districts were established in Bexleyheath (2011) and Sidcup (2016). Originally conceived as organisations that would improve the appearance of shopping centres, BIDs have increasingly become organisers of social events and activities which encourage people to visit and shop in town centres. Bexleyheath Bid will seek renewal in 2026 (for a fourth 5-year cycle), Sidcup in 2027 (a third 5-year cycle).
• Both Bird College and Rose Bruford have aspirations to grow. Bird College have published plans for a new street-facing 250-seat theatre and a partial campus redevelopment. The changes will make performances at the college more accessible to the Sidcup public and increase the size of their student population. In 2025 Rose Bruford took on a 25-year lease to a nearby former youth-centre, providing new space for working with its students which will free up 3space in the college campus to develop new theatre companies and businesses with its post-graduate students and alumni.
• In January 2026, in partnership with the NHS, the library service launched a new “ageing well” project at Sidcup Storyteller. This new hub for the new local older population will provide activities that contribute to sustained good health into older age. Integral to this is creative activities and opportunities, embedded at the heart of the project in response to the growing body of evidence that creative activity yields tangible physical and mental health benefits.

Capitalising on this momentum and new confidence, this is a strategy with the power to provide a considerable dividend for Bexley with examples of the economic benefit achieved through a focussed approach:

Culture changes reputations

The Turner Contemporary in Margate helped transform East Kent into a cultural destination, generating an additional £13.8 million in value for the economy. 62% of adults in the UK agree that culture on the high street gives them a sense of pride. 

Culture brings footfall

Culture is the main driver of visits to Britain and is widely viewed as an indispensable part of regeneration schemes and central to the national challenge to revive town centres. 92% of visitors to Lincoln’s Great Magna Carter weekend in 2015 said that the event had inspired them to return to the city. 

Culture brings investment

Nationally, every £1 spent by the government on culture brings in a further £1.23 in the rest of the economy.

Culture brings jobs

The creative industries are a growing source of employment across the capital. 1 in 7 London jobs are in the Creative Industries and 1 in 5 in the more broadly defined ‘creative economy’. Those Boroughs with a strategy capitalising on this do better. In Waltham Forest the number of creative businesses increased by 64% between 2010-2019, twice the London average.

Culture is tomorrow’s work

The DCMS’s ‘Creative Industries Sector Vision’ sets a target to create 1,000,000 new creative industries jobs by 2030. The sector has consistently outgrown the rest of the economy by 1.5% for the last decade. Commercial, publicly funded and community-driven culture all feed off each other - managing this alchemy will be key to creating new jobs and economic growth.