Plan to use art and culture to help ease lives of lonely

ART and culture should play more of a role in addressing loneliness according to a report commissioned by Warwickshire County Council.

And that could see a new group formed across the county to replicate work done in other parts of the UK.

Councillors at the latest cabinet meeting at Shire Hall heard a report from a Loneliness Advisory Group that looked at how health and wellbeing can be affected before coming up with a series of recommendations.

The group was impressed by the success of art and culture groups elsewhere, many of which were funded by the National Lottery. These included Time and Tide on the Isle of Wight where older people visit museums and art galleries and then engage in workshops to produce their own art and the Silver Social Project in Norfolk that puts on performances at libraries and village halls.

The report explained: “The advisory group appreciates the function that art and culture can serve in addressing loneliness. The group would wish to encourage the county council and other agencies involved in health and wellbeing provision to continue to support this.”

It recommended the creation of a Creative Health alliance across Warwickshire which would form a partnership between arts and culture organisations and health partners and would seem them work together on securing external funding.