Growing the Kent economy 2016/17

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64 kent.gov.uk/business
Zoe Murphy, whose furniture is inspired
by Margate and who has her studio and
workshop in the town employing local
people, sells to Liberty and Osbourne
and Little.
portfolio.html
Margate is also providing the inspiration
to mainstream designers: Fred Perry’s
‘Margate on the Run’ line and LK
Bennett’s Molly Canvas Tote bag,
featuring Margate.
Continued growth in Margate rests on
Margate’s authenticity – its original
seaside narrative – and its new identity
as a creative place. Kent County Council
invested in Resort Studios, Margate
allowing the organisation to develop
more work space and enabling a
financially sustainable future.
Resort now supports 44 professional
creative practitioners and micro
businesses, many of which have
re-located from London. Resort has
acted as a beacon, attracting new
Kent has a strong track record of investing in the cultural economy,
nurturing the identity of places to deliver attractive homes, communities
and growth. One of the county’smost exciting examples of this culture-led
regeneration is Margate’s emerging creative and cultural economy.
Among the many successes is Haeckels
whose tag line
is ‘Made of Margate’. It sells high-end
fragrance and skin care products
internationally, and now has a pop-up
store in Selfridges London, exporting
Margate to London. Haeckel’s owner,
Dom Bridges, raised in excess of £30,000
via a kick-starter campaign to create a
Margate ‘sauna’
sauna/
Initiatives have ranged from investment
in iconic infrastructure such as Turner
Contemporary in Margate to investing
in grass-roots growth of Kent’s emergent
creative clusters.
The investment in Margate has changed
the town’s reputation and increased
interest in the town’s property market,
as evidenced by the recent increase in
property prices.
In February 2015 The Telegraph revealed
Margate as one of three new property
hotspots in the UK, with a 46% year-on-
year increase in house sales 2013-2014.
Also in The Telegraph, “How East Kent
became the new Shoreditch” , showcases
East Kent as a place to invest, given its
new creative identity.
Artist Alex Chinneck, recently commis-
sioned by the London Design Festival,
produced his first large-scale work in
Margate, “From the knees of my nose to
the belly of my toes”, known locally as the
sliding house, which has become a feature
in the house sales details of local estate
agents. Margate now has a worldwide
reputation: a recent article in the Los
Angeles Times detailed Margate’s cultural
offer generated by the re-opening
of Dreamland.
East Kent is growing its reputation as
a place for new creative businesses
to start-ups: Kent County Council
has funded two creative industry
business support schemes - School
for Creative Start-ups and Creative
Success Kent.
Margate Cultural
Regeneration
Resort Studios, Gallery at Resort Studios, Margate