Entrepreneurial placemaking to support rural designers and artists

In this article, Dr Inge Hill from The Open University discusses her new research which investigates business support to craft, designer-makers, and visual artists in rural England and Scotland, with recommendations for policy-makers, business support agencies and artists.  

The new UK government industrial strategy ‘Invest 2035’ highlights the creative industries as a key growth sector, reflecting their increasing importance (265,000 business in 2023, 9.7 % of all UK businesses). This report’s focus on ‘place’ is timely, aligning with the UK ‘Creative Industries Sector Vision’ by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS), and the Creative Industries Council in 2023 naming the importance of place-related policy.

However, rural creatives and their unique locational challenges are often overlooked, with research undertaken in urban areas implicitly assuming that it is valid across the UK. Typical infrastructure challenges affect rural areas distinctly, as they have: fewer customers and competitors due to lower density of population and firms; accessibility issues due to being underserved with public transport and delivery via Royal Mail; less business infrastructure (e.g. bank branches, business support services, training, local suppliers). Distance matters! While England and Scotland both incorporate place-based approaches, Scotland offers more detail to place-based business support. This report seeks to advance such place-based business support for rural designers and artists.

Though my RAKE / ISBE research focused on England and Scotland, insights also apply to Wales: In 2023, Wales’ over 3,400 creative businesses employed 35,000 staff and contributed £1.7 billion to its economy. The ‘Creative Skills Action plan (2022-2025)’ provides an additional £1 million to support the creative sector with training and skills projects (Creative Wales, 2022), feeding into the identified needs for social media and digital skills, but the plan omits specific mention of rural challenges.

Key findings

In Scotland, designer artists are notably more visible in rural areas than in the English regions I investigated. However, my previous research in regions like Devon and Cornwall, reveals similar public visibility of artists and designer-makers reflected in galleries, craft markets, and other activities (for a map on creative clusters in England see Hill, 2025). 

. Findings are as follows:

1. Structured online networks with a platform for craft and visual artists in rural areas can significantly enhance knowledge exchange, peer support and collaboration. They benefit from a business support professional providing regular input but can work with trained peer champions.

2. Local peer groups: Regular in-person meetings of curated, closed networks (lasting at least half a day) foster connections and peer support.  Selecting members with shared values and interests is key to maintaining a group. Taking a small regular fee for paying external trainers enhances knowledge exchange and takes these networks beyond ‘chat’ meetings. Training and a checklist for minimum group criteria further enhance network effectiveness.

3. Hybrid peer support networks work effectively and in different ways, when well organised from the start. Clear setup criteria and ideally financial support are helpful from day 1 to set up and use a digital platform.

4. Existing physical buildings (craft centres or creative hubs) can host informal network events, to build relationships and meet possible members for developing more formal networks, and fostering community development, cohesion and well-being.

5. Council-managed Third Spaces (libraries, Council building rooms, community centres) could provide locations away from homes and studio workplaces, for designers/makers to hold network meetings, exhibitions or collaborative activities, enhancing community engagement and cohesion.

Policy recommendations

The policy recommendations target District and Parish Councils with little or no current engagement with designers/artists. They are also relevant for urban town councils and business improvement districts (BIDs) with limited involvement in supporting local makers, designers, craft and other artists.  The recommendations fit under two main themes:

  1. Make art and designers and artists more visible.
  2. Support community network building and development
  3. Public art installations - Install art in locations through the village and in front of Council buildings commissioned from local artists.
  4. Appoint a Councillor as arts patron to liaise with designers/artists and ensure that Council decisions consider the potential impact on, or benefits to, the arts sectors.
  5. Provide affordable exhibition spaces - offer reduced-fee rentals regularly to run exhibitions of, and by, local artists (e.g. in libraries, community centre, Council buildings) (See example in Picture 1).
  6. Combine farmers’ and craft markets (see example in Picture 2) - integrate farmers’ markets with craft markets to provide shared spaces and marketing for showcasing local arts and crafts.
  7. Seed funding for networks - provide initial funding to establish local designer/artist network groups in your local area, with a website and online platform to meet and exchange knowledge.
  8. Affordable meeting spaces - offer public buildings at lower fee for designer/artist groups to meet replacing meeting in private homes.
  9. Celebrate community arts development champions – celebrate designers/artists that organise networks and support groups, and create a dedicated community champion network (See report for details).

References

Creative Wales (2022). Creative skills action plan 2022-2025. Cardiff.

Department for Culture, Media and Sports (2022) Creative industries section vision. London.

Department for Business and Trade (2024) Invest 2035. The UK’s Modern Industrial Strategy. London.

Hill, I. (2024a) Entrepreneurial placemaking for rural business support for designers/makers. Milton Keynes.

Hill, I. (2025) Supporting rural firms is important for rural economies? – A call for a placebased approach. Milton Keynes.

Hill, I. and Mole, K. (2022). Supporting rural businesses. State of the Art. SOTA No. 4. Newcastle: National Innovation Centre for Rural Enterprise. (free to download).

Hill, I., Manning, L, and Frost, R. (2021). Rural arts entrepreneurs’ placemaking - how entrepreneurial placemaking explains creative hub evolution during COVID-19 lockdown. Local Economy 36(7-8), 627-649.  https://doi.org/10.1177/02690942221083838 (free to download).