Creative Enterprise Zone Showcase

Waltham Forest Council are pleased to announce the accreditation of our ‘Blackhorse Collective’, one of the first nine Creative Enterprise Zones across London and a designated space to maintain Blackhorse Lane’s cultural identity. The Creative Enterprise Zones are one of the Mayor of London’s flagship cultural programmes, dedicated to ensuring that artists and creatives are supported to put down roots in local areas and giving them opportunities to grow their careers and businesses.

Waltham Forest was named the first London Borough of Culture by Sadiq Khan in 2019, in which creativity flourished and saw hundreds of thousands of residents get involved in events, projects and festivals. The Blackhorse Collective is one step in securing the legacy of the Borough of Culture and fostering a strong creative industry within Waltham Forest.

We had the pleasure of welcoming Justine Simons OBE, the Deputy Mayor for Culture and Creative Industries to Waltham Forest to launch the borough’s first Creative Enterprise Zone. Alongside the Leader of Waltham Forest Council, Grace Williams, they toured Soho Theatre Walthamstow, Big Creative Education, Blackhorse Workshop and Yonder, showcasing student performers, makers and creators and cultural hubs.

As the Blackhorse Collective, we wish to encourage creative growth in a variety of ways:

• Using Council powers to keep workspaces affordable for artists and creative businesses
• Giving expert business support to creative start-ups, including a platform for collaboration
• Connecting creating businesses to the local workforce through apprenticeship schemes, pathways to work and public skill sessions.
• Creating policy which benefits creative businesses

This long-term effort is to disrupt a cycle in which creative businesses make an area increasingly attractive to new residents, which risks pricing them out of an area they helped create.