UK cultural venue nurtures creative skills - Main contents

​High House Production Park is a place where creative skills in the arts, heritage and cultural sector can be practised, developed and put on display. The park will be presented at the Committee of the Regions' (CoR) upcoming Europe 2020 flagship conference, entitled "Culture and Creativity: Europe's regions and cities making a difference", as a good example of a successful cultural initiative.

The High House Production Park project aims to advance education, foster community development and cohesion and develop the arts, heritage and culture. Its state of the art facilities are used by theatre production teams to produce set designs and props. The Backstage Training Centre provides coaching of necessary skills for those wanting to pursue careers in the backstage, theatre and music sectors, and shortly there will be some 40 studios available for artists to use. The site is also a place for community activity; it has areas for meetings, celebrations or recreation.

The park spans 56.7 km2 and was set up in 2010 thanks to the collaboration of a selection of cultural agencies: the Arts Council England, East of England Development Agency, The National Skills Academy for Creative and Cultural, Thurrock Council, Thurrock Development Corporation and the Royal Opera House.

Culture and Creativity conference

In light of new EU funding opportunities for the period 2014-2020, the Committee of the Regions' conference on 29-30 January 2014 brings together policy-makers, experts, creative minds and trend watchers, artists and representatives of European associations and international organisations to discuss success stories from cultural and creative sectors and their impact on local development.