Creative vision for Crieff
Group’s plans for music, film and creative arts
A cinema, community radio station and community bookshop and music store are just some of the projects being mooted by a new organisation with ambitious plans for Crieff.
Creative Crieff wants to boost the town and wider area through its aims of using music, film and the creative arts to increase skills, experiences, and confidence.
They hope this will provide learning opportunities, reduce isolation by offering social interaction, promote community integration and harmony and drive town centre regeneration.
A cinema, community radio station and community book and music store are just some of the projects being mooted by a new organisation with ambitious plans for the Strath capital.
Members of Creative Crieff gave a presentation on the group’s ideas to further boost the town and the wider area at the most recent meeting of the local community council.
The group currently has over 20 members, including Elizabeth Bell and daughter Siobhan, who outlined the new community group’s aims of using music, film and the creative arts to increase skills, experiences, and confidence.
They hope this will provide learning opportunities, reduce isolation by offering social interaction, promote community integration and harmony and drive town centre regeneration.
The idea is that profits from ventures such as a boutique cinema would provide the outreach programmes.
Elizabeth is interim chief executive officer of Creative Crieff.
She said: “We are very excited about our plans and in November we are going to be doing a formal membership drive.
“We currently have 26 members, and are working to finalise our website and logo just now before we launch the membership campaign as well as a formal community consultation survey about cinema provision and our proposed community radio initiative.
“Anyone in the PH5, PH6 and PH7 postcode districts can join as a full voting member – it’s free, as long as one supports our values and purpose.”
The group’s plans for a cinema are being supported by Regional S c reen Scotland’s ‘Cinema Near You Programme’, which is funded through Creative Scotland and the National Lottery.
Elizabeth explained: “The programme is about making independent cinema available to rural communities such as Crieff. We basically want to have our own unique version of the Dundee Contemporary Arts Centre (DCA), which we know has been hugely successful and been a catalyst to the entire waterfront regeneration project in Dundee.
“The feasibility study has shown that, not only will a cinema be successful in the Crieff area, it will be profitable and create several good jobs at the same time.
“There is a lot of scepticism about the profitability of such an idea, but the key to success is to have at least two or three screens so that you can show the blockbusters, but also newly-released films which are also popular.
“This is exactly what we are proposing for the Crieff area.”
Elizabeth stressed that Creative Crieff is not trying to replace or displace any of the town’s other organisations, such as Strathearn Artspace.
She continued: “We believe our project will bring back a vibrancy and a buzz to the town centre.
“We not only want to bring more people to the town, we also want to give them a further reason to visit, which in turn will be a boost for local businesses.
“And one of the key trading subsidiaries we intend to launch is a community bookstore and music shop which we believe will do just that.
“Book stores like the Watermill in Aberfeldy,
Leakey’s Books, Inverness or Barter Books in Alnwick are not just shops selling books, they are experiences to enjoy, and we want Crieff to be the same.”