‘Culture is not just a ‘bit of fun’ but a fundamental pillar of levelling up and vital to everything from improving physical and mental health to raising educational attainment.
Speaking at the LGA’s annual conference in Harrogate, crossbencher, actress and author Baroness Lola Young drew on her own experience in care to flag the importance of councils’ cultural services – including the libraries that provided the books that fed her imagination.
While acknowledging that councils are still going through difficult times, she said: “It’s a very good time to be talking about the arts, despite everything going on… Culture has a substantial range of benefits, which if you took them away would make [for example] the cost of social care even more expensive than it is.”
Baroness Young is chairing the LGA’s independent Commission on Culture and Local Government.