Greenwich Council has launched a consultation on an culture and heritage strategy – days after a petition to reopen the borough’s museum and archive centre passed 1,500 signatures.

Residents are asked what cultural activities they are interested in, how much of it they do in the borough, what they would like to see and how they think the council could achieve this.

The strategy comes as the council prepares its third to become London borough of culture – one that has been criticised in the wake of the loss of the Greenwich Heritage Centre in Woolwich five years ago and the closure of Greenwich Dance, which was announced last month.

The petition to restore the heritage centre began after the borough of culture bid was launched at the £45 million Woolwich Works arts hub with a call for residents to share their family histories. 

Local historians pointed out that researching this history was now much harder without the heritage centre, which had been evicted to make way for Woolwich Works. The archive is now kept in a warehouse in Charlton with limited public access.

One group, the Greenwich Historical Society, has called for the closed-down Borough Hall in west Greenwich to be used as a location for a new heritage centre. The art-deco venue was put on the market three years ago and its future remains uncertain.

Greenwich does not currently has a culture strategy, and has engaged Art Reach, a Leicester-based consultancy, to help draw one up. An Art Reach report for the council published last month found that the borough was divided into “metroculturals” in the northwest – the SE3 and SE10 postcodes covering Blackheath and Greenwich – and “kaleidoscope creatives” in the remainder.

“Metroculturals” are, councillors were told, “an active, educated, prosperous, ethnically diverse and liberal-minded group who choose the urban lifestyle specifically for the broad range of cultural opportunities it offers”. But “kaleidoscope creatives” in the likes of Woolwich or Eltham are “characterised by their low cultural engagement, despite some considering themselves ‘arty’. They are easily put off by price, so are more likely to attend free events.”

The petition to restore the Greenwich Heritage centre can be found at change.org.
Greenwich Council’s culture and heritage consultation is at commonplace.is.