Interview: Festivals, Creativity & Bank Holidays!

It was great to be back at BBC CWR reviewing the newspapers with Phil Upton.

As I begin my term as Chair of the Local Enterprise Partnership for Coventry and Warwickshire, I am keen to see it return to its former glory after the pandemic.

‘Boris on the Buses’ was my first story from the Coventry Telegraph. Boris’s trip to the National Express depot cements the ambition Coventry has to be the first ‘all-electric bus’ city. From the Local Enterprise Partnership, it is crucial to have Coventry on the global map as the city leading the way on future transport. This is a key part of the Strategic Reset Framework we developed in 2020 working hard with all our Business Groups and stakeholders to recover and rebuild our economy. One of the strategic pillars is securing a green sustainable future for Coventry & Warwickshire and we want to continue to be the region that produces new innovative ideas.

My next choice was an exciting and uplifting story giving us all hope for the upcoming months as we take crucial steps to get back to normality. The Warwick Folk Festival is going ahead in 2021! It will obviously follow coronavirus guidelines and is scheduled for the 15^th to 18^th of July. I couldn’t be more pleased to finally see the return of some of our life before Covid and we can once again enjoy festivals like the Folk Festival and the Coventry Food Festival which is also returning in July. Our summers filled with festivals are on the horizon again! We are truly a region of community activity and I am over the moon that Warwick’s 40-year-old festival will be back again.

The Leamington Courier was my next story which was a request to Government to put creative arts on the recovery curriculum in our schools. A gentleman called John Eno, the Founder of music schools operating locally, is calling on the Department of Education to push creative arts as the schools go back.

I have a nine-year-old daughter who is now back at school and during the course of both lockdowns she enjoyed making things, drawing, and being creative. This article shares the significance of this creativity in building resilience, supporting communication, and improving well-being as well as helping children to learn all through creativity. There are significant economic opportunities in the creative industries now too so we should really pay attention to developing this mindset in our current and future workforce so I completely back John to put creative arts front and centre in our curriculum.

Another story I was thrilled to read was from the Birmingham Mail about the proposed four-day bank holiday next year in June 2022 to mark the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee. It is truly remarkable she will be the longest serving monarch and her dedication to serving us is most worthy of an extended national celebration. It also ties in wonderfully with the Commonwealth Games taking place across the region in July 2022.

I am already planning my extended bank holiday! Fingers crossed for sunshine and being back to some kind of normality.

Thank you for having me on this morning Phil – once again always a pleasure chatting to you. I am glad I chose uplifting stories to focus on as we start to see some rays of light breaking through what seemed a very dark lockdown winter.

Listen to the full interview here:

Written by Ellie Wiltshire