City of Culture: Did Hull's year in the spotlight in 2017 leave a lasting legacy? We find out

Did Hull’s year in the spotlight in 2017 as the City of Culture create a lasting legacy? Alex Wood reports.

The heady euphoria that accompanied Hull’s winning the bid and then hosting City of Culture 2017 now seems light years away.

Hull beat three rivals to take the title – at the time an impossible dream come true. The Culture Company went on to raise more than £32m to put on 2,800 events seen by more than five million people.

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Ask someone on the street what they remember and they’ll mention “the naked blue people” when thousands bared all for art. They may recall the incredible sight of a 75-m long Siemens turbine blade taking up Queen Victoria Square.

People take part in an installation titled Sea of Hull by artist Spencer Tunick in Hull.People take part in an installation titled Sea of Hull by artist Spencer Tunick in Hull.
People take part in an installation titled Sea of Hull by artist Spencer Tunick in Hull.

It could be the blue-coated volunteers, who turned out in their thousands to support the programme and are still going strong eight years on, helping out with cultural projects and generally beating the drum for the city.

In Trinity Market, without missing a beat one trader says, when asked about legacy: “It killed off the city centre”.

He is referring to what seemed like endless roadworks in the run up to 2017, which he believes changed many people’s habits for good and sent them to more easily accessible out of town shopping centres.

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However Phil Thurston, who started selling handmade tarts in the market in 2018, when it had just been revamped into a food hall, takes a more positive view, and believes it brought major benefits for the Old Town.

Ceramic Artist Adele Howitt, owner of Studio Eleven, Humber Street, Hull, the only artist to own an independent art gallery in Hull. Picture: James Hardisty.Ceramic Artist Adele Howitt, owner of Studio Eleven, Humber Street, Hull, the only artist to own an independent art gallery in Hull. Picture: James Hardisty.
Ceramic Artist Adele Howitt, owner of Studio Eleven, Humber Street, Hull, the only artist to own an independent art gallery in Hull. Picture: James Hardisty.

But he admits: “It made it a tourist destination for a few years, there’s definitely been a drop off. Without an influx of people, it’s still hard to make a living.”

What do people in the arts in Hull think seven years on? Was it “transformational” as promised and has it left a lasting legacy?

One commentator said: “There was a lot of bad feeling from some of the artists who felt they were spurned by the Culture Company. They didn’t want to engage with the successor Absolutely Cultured, that was another problem.

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“Some people say it has improved perceptions. Others say no. A lot of artists say Hull was a quirky town with its own way of doing things. The hope was that City of Culture would drop them into the mainstream. Some will argue they went straight back to being quirky again.”

Two arts organisations, Middle Child theatre company and the successor to the Culture Company, Absolutely Cultured, landed annual grants from Arts Council England.

For Middle Child, City of Culture represented a huge upswing in their fortunes, with National Portfolio Organisation status bringing in £152,000 a year.

Artistic director and chief executive Paul Smith said: “We basically moved from having to apply for project funding every three, six or nine months to just having a lot more security and thinking long term.

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"City of Culture helped us transform from a company that makes plays to one that has a year round programme.”

Middle Child has just launched a playwrighting festival, offers free workspace and runs workshops and masterclasses all year round.

A team of six employs 130 artists every year, the vast majority of whom are local. Paul says it’s impossible for a year-long festival to fix deep-rooted problems. Covid followed soon afterwards, making a massive change to the way people live.

“After Covid with the cost of living, now National Insurance contributions, there’s a different conversation than the one back in 2017. It’s a tough time for the arts”.

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Ceramic artist Adele Howitt runs the city’s only independent contemporary ceramics gallery on Humber Street.

Adele, who has work on show at Leeds Corn Exchange in February, said: “In the build up to City of Culture this was the area which they showed dignitaries around, MPs, Tate curators.

“There were only a handful of people here at the time. It is a big struggle now because the funding streams have changed to the point where there’s very little funding for independent artists and businesses to access and develop their programme of work.

“And footfall now is a fraction of what it was in City of Culture. Before 2017 Hull seemed to be stuck in the past. Now there are more hotels, more places to go, good restaurants. There is Humber Street. It has been a change for the better.”

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City of Culture certainly put Hull on the map, in terms of BBC weather forecasts, at least. It drew attention to the fact that Hull - like other northern cities - wasn’t getting its fair share of funding.

On the back of 2017 came £15m National Lottery funding to develop the maritime museum, create a new visitor attraction, the North End Shipyard, and restore two historic vessels, with the ambition of attracting 300,000 more tourists a year. Covid put a spoke in the wheel, and work is ongoing seven years later.

The Spurn Lightship is expected to be the first reopen this spring.

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