A New Home for Metal & Co - A Call to Action
/Jumped Up Theatre is very disappointed by the news that Peterborough City Council is terminating Metal Peterborough’s lease at Chauffeur’s Cottage. We ask that every effort is made to immediately secure a new, suitable home for Metal, and for its extensive programme of events and partnerships.
This eviction impacts not just Metal, and tenants such as Peterborough Presents and Eastern Angles, and the multiple freelance artists who are based there, it also undermines the numerous local artists and community groups who use this central, accessible, welcoming and inspiring space for meetings, rehearsals and 1-2-1 support.
Action is needed now, from city leaders and every individual who values arts and culture, to ensure that the social and economic benefits that have been built up by this vital arts hub are not lost.
The building, the team who run it, and the other arts organisations and independent artists in residence there, have created an ecosystem which is crucial to the success of the local, cultural infrastructure, that in turn serves audiences, artists and community participants. A decade of hard work, a partnership with PCC and the close proximity of those using the site, has leveraged thousands of pounds of additional external funding, multiple new collaborations, and over a million opportunities for local people to attend festivals, events and exhibitions.
It is an engine of innovation, investment and care for the creative industries in Peterborough, and for community groups for whom creativity is a tool for cohesion, resilience and equality.
Jumped Up has also relied on “Chauffeur’s”, both as a physical space and as a body of compassionate and talented people, as a place to meet and create, to get support and guidance, fuelling our own mission to increase equality through arts and culture.
We ask that our City Councillors and two MPs use their power, influence and networks, invested in them by their constituents, to support a transition to a new base in a timely and appropriate way that safeguards the economic and social benefits that have been built up over the past ten years.
We ask the council officers, especially those in senior posts, to follow-through on their commitments to strategic and long-term support for Metal and the wider cultural and community ecosystem, pledges that they have made to the us, the Cultural Alliance, to funders, and in their own Culture Strategy.
We ask the people of Peterborough to sign the petition that asks for an extension to the current eviction notice until a suitable, and agreed, replacement premises is found for the current tenants. Signing this petition will help the local arts sector, whether they be established organisations, young artists or audiences seeking new experiences, and show PCC how much arts and culture is valued.
Peterborough needs more than the bare basics if it is going to thrive and survive. City centre regeneration, social harmony, effective public services, community well-being, and a healthy and happy population are a shared ambition of the local creative sector, the council and local people, which we can collectively deliver, if partnerships are authentic, strategic and collaborative.
The process of rehousing Metal and the legacy of its ten years at Chauffeurs will be a signal to everyone of how Peterborough will move forward in 2024/25 in addressing its many challenges.
The options are a process that leads to loss and failure, losing arts and culture’s power as tools for equality and growth, alienating communities, artists and funders. Or the process could be imaginative, bold and ambitious, inspiring ongoing investment, civic pride and the growth of a hopeful, inclusive and modern city.
We are hoping for the latter. It’s what Peterborough needs and deserves.