The Yorkshire Post says: This cultural life – importance of arts in the Yorkshire Dales

But the presence of art, theatre and museums has never been the exclusive province of the biggest centres. Indeed, it is sometimes at its most valuable in the smallest.

The Great Places initiative within the Yorkshire Dales to foster enclaves of creative people and their young families is an important first step in building sustainable new communities there.

Its early fruits include the inaugural Hinterlands Film Festival, which will take place next month in Skipton – a town that ordinarily has only one cinema.

It will give the locals an opportunity to see films that would otherwise be denied them – but more importantly, it signals the importance of culture, alongside the more tangible benefits of affordable houses, schools and shops, in keeping alive the villages of the Dales as functioning organisms, not just museums of their own past.