Damian Collins, Conservative Parliamentary Candidate for Folkestone and Hythe

Time to get creative about growth.

No, I’m not talking about the Chancellor’s over optimistic Budget yesterday, but the growing importance of the creative industries to our economy.

The creative industries like film, music, literature, art and design have always played an important part in our economy. Creative people have been drawn to the unique landscapes of Romney Marsh and Dungeness for generations, from writers to like HG Wells to film makers like Derek Jarman. The creativity of the Marsh can also be seen in Andy Holver and Niko Miaoulis’s new book, ‘Life on Marsh’. The Creative Quarter in Folkestone, Literary Festival and last year’s Triennial Art Festival have further helped to increase the importance of these industries to the local area. In Folkestone, the creative industries have now become integral to the regeneration of the town.

Nationally, the creative industries make up for about 10% of the value of the economy, and have the potential to play an important part in building a new economy after the recession. For this reason the Conservative Party has launched a new Taskforce, led by the former Director General of the BBC, Greg Dyke, to look at the policy changes that need to be made to support innovation and growth in the creative industries. The Taskforce is due to report in the autumn, and will also look into how to sustain investment in UK content in the digital age, stimulate investment in next-generation broadband, create sustainable local media and ensure there is a skilled workforce.

I attended the launch of this on Monday, and also there were other members of the Taskforce, including lastminute.com founder Brent Hoberman.

I would be really interested to hear your views on this and ideas for new ways in which government can support the creative industries locally. Also, next month along with the Shadow Culture Secretary, Jeremy Hunt MP, I will be helping to launch a new network for people working in the creative industries to meet up and feed their ideas into the Conservative Party and it would be great to hear from people interested in finding out more about this.



Damian Collins, is the Conservative Parliamentary Candidate for Folkestone and Hythe. He can be reached at www.damiancollins.com.

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