Creative businesses and freelancers outside of London are in line for major government support to help them innovate, up-skill and attract private investment.
Six UK regions with strengths in creative industries such as film and TV, music, fashion and video games have been awarded £25 million each to grow these sectors as part of the Government’s Creative Places Growth Fund.
The announcement comes ahead of work by the newly-formed trade association, ComicBookUK, currently gathering data on the comics industry in the UK, to further bolster support for comic publishers and creators.
The fund was announced in the Creative Industries Sector Plan in June, as part of the Industrial Strategy, where the Government shared their intention to invest £150 million in the creative industries of six regions outside of London – Greater Manchester, Liverpool City Region, North East, West of England, West Midlands and West Yorkshire.
Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy has now revealed that the fund will be split equally across these regions to drive growth, innovation and investment. The fund will empower local Mayors to support creative professionals, businesses and young people in their communities with access to finance, mentoring and networking opportunities to help them connect with investors and skills programmes.
This is a new approach to supporting creative industries by devolving funding to high-growth potential Mayoral Strategic Authorities (MSAs). The £25 million allocations will be awarded to the six MSAs over three years, starting in the 2026 financial year, for them to distribute according to local barriers and opportunities.
This is part of a whole range of support announced in the Creative Industries Sector Plan supporting creative growth across the whole of the UK, including providing business support for local creative businesses, regional skills initiatives, innovation capacity building programmes, or by providing sector specific support such as TV and film production funds.
Separately, the Government has announced that more than 100 micro, small, and medium-sized creative enterprises across twelve regions are receiving a share of £8 million in grants through the Create Growth Programme.
The grants, ranging from £20,000 to £140,000, are aimed at helping these high-growth businesses commercialise their ideas and access resources, knowledge and private investment to scale up – turning today’s growing businesses into tomorrow’s success stories.
Grants will help firms like Translating Nature, an art and design studio in Margate, and King Bee, a creative animation studio in Hertfordshire, to develop innovative new products, attract private investment and access one-to-one mentoring with industry experts.
The businesses in sectors such as gaming, music and marketing are based in Greater Manchester; Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire; North East of England; West of England; Devon and Cornwall; South East; Leicestershire, Derbyshire and Greater Lincolnshire; Nottingham and Nottinghamshire; Hull and East Yorkshire; West Midlands; West Yorkshire; and Hertfordshire.
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John is the founder of downthetubes, launched in 1998. He is a comics and magazine editor, writer, and Press Officer for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. He also runs Crucible Comic Press.
Working in British comics publishing since the 1980s, his credits include editor of titles such as Doctor Who Magazine and Overkill for Marvel UK, Babylon 5 Magazine, Star Trek Magazine, and its successor, Star Trek Explorer, and more. He also edited the comics anthology STRIP Magazine and edited several audio comics for ROK Comics; and has edited several comic collections and graphic novels, including volumes of “Charley’s War” and “Dan Dare”, and Hancock: The Lad Himself, by Stephen Walsh and Keith Page.
He’s the writer of comics such as Pilgrim: Secrets and Lies for B7 Comics; “Crucible”, a creator-owned project with 2000AD artist Smuzz; and “Death Duty” and “Skow Dogs”, with Dave Hailwood.
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