Creative industries campus planned for Kendal

A £25m plan to create a national centre of excellence for arts and culture in Kendal will shortly be submitted to the North West Development Agency.

The scheme, which would see the Brewery Arts Centre expanded to become a creative industries campus at the heart of a new cultural quarter, has already undergone a £150,000 feasibility study funded through Cumbria Vision.

Now those driving the project, which has been developed by Sam Mason, boss at the Brewery, and Graham Wilkinson, principal of Kendal College, and supported by the new University of Cumbria, South Lakeland District Council and the board of the recently-formed Kendal Futures group, claim that if approved, it could be completed in three to four years.

The key players believe the development of such a campus would attract art and culture students as well as creative industries businesses from all over the world.