When you visit an area that is thriving, somewhere that feels vibrant, creative, and alive, it’s easy to assume it just happens naturally. You walk into a bustling local market square, hear local musicians performing, see art hanging in a café window, and you think, this place just has a lovely feeling about it.
This often happens when we are on holiday or visiting a friend's town. But what about our own hometowns? How do we contribute to making that happen for ourselves?
That palpable sense of place is almost never the result of one thing. It is the result of years of invisible scaffolding. It’s built by people who decided to stop waiting for someone else to make their town interesting, and instead just started doing things, often quietly, through trial and error, and without any guarantee of success.
Me and my daughter at the fabulous St Neots festival - the best local event I've ever attended.
The Bid For UK Town Of Culture 2028
As I write this, St Neots is bidding to become the UK Town of Culture 2028. Led by Neotists CIC, it is a massive opportunity. The winning town receives £3 million to fund a year of cultural programming, which is incredible, but the cash prize isn't the only interesting part of the story to me.
There is value in what the process of bidding forces a town to do. It forces us to look at where we live and ask questions. Who are we, and what do we care about?
This is a new national programme, a spin off from the grander City of Culture awards. We already know how powerful these initiatives can be; when Liverpool became the European Capital of Culture in 2008 (a massive campaign spearheaded by Sir Phil Redmond of Brookside fame) it completely transformed the city's trajectory. Now, Sir Phil is involved in the Town of Culture initiative, proving that the same creative spark can happen at a smaller scale.
The Postcard
Recently, the St Neots bid team needed a single image (a postcard) to carry the spirit of the town out into the world. To find it, they went to the archive of an exhibition called Postcard to/from St Neots, organised by the Neotists and held at the St Neots Museum.
They chose a small painting I had submitted, based on a photo I’d taken at the St Neots Festival back in 2024. It was such a wonderful event, I really hope it happens again.
I am really proud to have my artwork chosen, but the real point here isn't the painting itself. The point is that when the town suddenly needed a cultural visual asset to rally around, the infrastructure already existed to provide it. The Neotists, the Museum, and local creatives have spent years doing the patient work of fostering a creative ecosystem alongside the business and social hubs. They’ve been building a community where people feel safe to submit a piece of art, turn up to an event, start a conversation, try a new skill, or simply drink and draw in local pubs.
Art In The Background
Culture doesn't need a pristine white gallery wall to be valid. It just needs to exist in the spaces where we live, breathe, and gather.
For over a year, I had a painting hanging on the wall at the Art and Soul café in St Neots. I have a photograph of my daughter sitting underneath it (she didn't know it was my painting she just randomly chose to sit there), drinking a hot chocolate and doing her homework while I attended a life drawing class in another room.
When the café eventually relocated and the artwork had to come down, a regular customer bought it - they had lived alongside that canvas week after week. When it was about to leave, they realised it had become part of their routine, and they couldn't bear to lose it. That was such a wonderful moment for me when I heard that. That is how art and culture connects us.
The Interconnected Ecosystem Of A Town
A thriving community cannot survive on a single fuel source. A town doesn't grow a vibrant cultural scene in a vacuum. It is an entirely interconnected ecosystem. You cannot have a flourishing arts scene without thriving local independent businesses to house it. You cannot have community engagement without grassroots groups tackling the hard, daily realities of youth employment, mental health, and social equity.
St Neots, is lucky to have a rich tapestry of people fighting for these different pieces of the puzzle. While the creative community rallies around arts organisations like Neotists, groups like the St Neots Initiative work tirelessly to champion the local economy, and the Citizen Hub provides a vital space for connection, enterprise, and social support. Inspire to Ignite create pathways for young people to access opportunities and the Pay It Forward scheme at Citizen Hub means there’s always a warm welcome for anyone who needs it.
A few years ago, Jon Alexander (author of Citizens) gave an inspiring talk at a Neotists event about what it means to build a community from the ground up (an idea he recently shared on a wider stage in a brilliant TED talk - sign up to his emails to know when it goes live).
Around eighteen months ago, I attended an event at the Citizen Hub where Simon Squibb (the entrepreneur and St Neots native) came back to share his vision for funding dreams. I handed him one of my pieces of art that afternoon as a gift from the town.
Reclaiming The 'Joiner-Inner'
Some people may see culture as a luxury reserved for major cities with grand institutions, massive budgets, and celebrity mayors. And there can be a hesitation in smaller towns to claim that space for ourselves.
But culture isn't decoration. It is the snail trail of evidence we leave behind when we are being humans going about our daily lives.
If we want our high streets to be more than an interchangeable line of vape stores and betting shops, we need a community that is alive. We need people who are willing to organise events, certainly, but we also need people who are willing to show up.
In the movie Dirty Dancing, the older sister looks at Baby’s idealism and mocks her, 'Quite the little joiner, aren’t we?' It’s meant as a put-down, a dig at the uncoolness of actually caring and participating.
But I think we need to completely reclaim the 'joiner-inner.' Showing up is a radical act. It actively shapes the character of the place you live, a quiet brick in that invisible scaffold.
The Value Of Trial And Error
A healthy community requires a willingness to fail. Not every event will be packed. Not every exhibition will sell out. But a town where people are trying, failing, adjusting, and trying again is a town that is resilient. It's the same with my art business and it's the same for towns and cities.
If we want to live in places that feel connected and inspiring, we have to be willing to participate in the messy, beautiful work of showing up.
Submit to the open calls. Help out at the local festival. Support the market traders, cafes and local shops. Enter your courgettes into the country fair. Bake the cake. Shake the pom-poms. Be the joiner-inner. The collective weight of those small efforts is exactly how we change the places we love.
