Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Lord Freyberg Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 4th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freyberg (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, for tabling Amendment 185H, and I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, for tabling Amendment 112—I support both of them. In speaking today, I declare my interest as an artist member of DACS, the Design and Artists Copyright Society.

These amendments represent a vital evolution in our planning framework. Although we have long recognised the importance of assets of community value under the Localism Act 2011, we have yet to adequately address the unique vulnerability and significance of our cultural infrastructure. Amendments 185H and 112 address this vital gap by establishing a complementary scheme specifically aimed at safeguarding spaces where creativity thrives and community and cultural expression flourish.

As the noble Earl has said, Britain’s cultural landscape faces unprecedented challenges. We have witnessed the heartbreaking closure of countless music venues, recording studios, rehearsal spaces and artist studios—spaces that are not merely commercial properties but the very bedrock of our creative economy. These venues serve as incubators for emerging talent, repositories of cultural knowledge and gathering places where communities forge their identity through shared artistic expression.

I speak from personal experience. In the late 1990s, I was a member of Cubitt studios, an artist co-operative with a public gallery and 32 studio spaces, based at the time in King’s Cross before its redevelopment by the urban regeneration specialist Argent. At that time, artist-led spaces such as Cubitt prevented historic buildings from falling into decay, giving the area a focus beyond drugs and prostitution, for which it had become known. They sparked the creative energy that would later underpin the success of the King’s Cross regeneration. That pattern has been repeated across the country: artists acting as cultural guardians, only to be displaced when values rise and protections prove absent. As Neil Smith, the late geographer, once observed, artists are often “shock troops” of gentrification. They pioneer in forgotten places, but their very success makes those places vulnerable to speculative displacement.

The cleverness of this amendment lies in its recognition that cultural assets serve dual purposes: advancing the cultural well-being of communities while safeguarding the spaces essential for the development of specialist cultural skills. To a planner, a small rehearsal studio may seem inconsequential, yet it may be where the next generation of musicians learn their craft or where community groups gather to create, celebrate and connect. By building on the tested framework of the assets of community value scheme, Amendment 185H offers a proportionate and workable model.