Six More Lancashire Places Added To The Priority Places For Culture List. Here’s Why It Matters.

The government just named its cultural investment priorities. Lancashire now has eight of them.

Last week, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport published its new Culture Priority Places list - 81 local authority areas across England identified as priorities for cultural investment, targeted specifically at the places where deprivation is highest and cultural engagement is lowest. For Lancashire, the news is significant.
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Blackburn with Darwen and Blackpool were already on the list as existing Arts Council Priority Places. They’ve now been joined by six more: Burnley, Hyndburn, Pendle, Preston, Rossendale and Wyre. That’s eight Lancashire places in total on a list of 81. A significant concentration for a single county, and a clear signal that the scale of need here has been recognised at the highest level.

What Is a Culture Priority Place, and Why Does It Matter?The DCMS didn’t arrive at this list arbitrarily. The methodology combines three factors: low physical engagement with arts, libraries and museums; high levels of deprivation and community need; and historically low levels of Arts Council funding per head.

​In other words, these are places that have been systematically underserved - by the funding system, by participation data, and by infrastructure - and where the government is now explicitly committing to change that.


The practical implication is that DCMS will work with the Arts Council and other funding partners to direct investment, programmes and policy attention towards these places. Culture Priority Places won’t automatically unlock funding - decisions will be made programme by programme - but being on this list puts a place in the room for conversations it previously wasn’t part of. It signals, at a national level, that these communities are a priority.

What This Could Mean for Lancashire For Burnley, Hyndburn, Pendle, Preston, Rossendale and Wyre, this is a genuine shift in how the cultural sector’s attention and resources could flow.
Preston is home to a growing creative scene and, as a university city with strong cultural infrastructure, has all the ingredients for artistic growth - despite historically receiving less national arts funding than its potential might suggest.


Priority Place status puts Preston in direct line for programmes designed to build participation and close the gap between what the city has and what its communities can access.

Burnley and Pendle sit in the Pennine corridor where creative and cultural provision has long been stretched - but where a growing ecology of artists, makers and cultural organisations, including the internationally recognised British Textile Biennial, has been building something genuinely distinctive. Recognition at this level could bring the investment needed to sustain what already exists and to develop emerging opportunities.

Hyndburn and Rossendale are two of the areas with the most acute attainment challenges in the county - the same data that informed our recent creative education research. Key Stage 2 data puts Hyndburn at 50% meeting the expected standard. Cultural investment in these places isn’t a luxury; it’s directly connected to educational outcomes, mental health and long-term economic participation.
Wyre, on the Fylde Coast, has historically sat in Blackpool’s shadow when it comes to cultural attention and resource. Priority Place status gives Wyre its own standing - and its own case to make.

The Bigger Picture

​The publication of this list is not unconnected from the wider direction of travel in cultural policy. The UK Government’s 2025 Curriculum Reforms, the ongoing review of Arts Council England’s place-based approach, and the growing body of evidence linking cultural investment to economic and social outcomes have all contributed to a moment where place - specifically, the places most in need - is finally being taken seriously.

Read the full DCMS Culture Priority Places list and methodology at gov.uk.