Crawley’s Creative Playground began in April 2022 when £1 million funding was secured from Arts Council England with a match funding target of an additional £150k over the three funded years. Manor Royal Business Improvement District were the lead organisation and the original consortium were Crawley Town Community Foundation, Diverse Crawley, The Hawth and Crawley LGBT+ with Creative Crawley delivering the programme.
2022/23 was a set up year, building the partnerships and getting the staff team in place. After some staff changes, in 2023, Louise Blackwell and Sophie Eustace became Project Co-Directors. From May 2023 direct delivery of projects began and the project took off. Between 2023 and 2026 the consortium membership changed and evolved with Caridon Housing Trust coming on board for a short period.
From 2022 – 2026 the programme reached over 29,000 audiences and participants , 28% of whom were first time attenders. we hosted 374 events and activities across 11 different artforms, with 62 different partners and 233 creative professionals. Since 2024 the 6 murals we have created have been seen by 3.7 million people. from 2022 – 2026 we secured £265,091 match funding in this period (including cash match and support in kind). From April 2026 Creative Crawley became the lead organisation and the consortium includes Manor Royal Business District, Freeshop Crawley, Tamil Learning Centre, Crawley Community Youth Service, Manor Green College and County Mall Shopping Centre. The independent chair is Dave Watmore.
