City of Culture? Perth is going all out to change perceptions in 2021

Becky Minto

In short, she feels she’s at the heart of things. That is the geographical reality of Perth. Culturally though? Perhaps not. And the reason Perth is perfect for Minto is one of the reasons why Perth poses problems for Perth itself.
Here’s a question. Unless you’re from the city or have friends or family there (in which case you’re excused answering this), when was the last time you were in Perth?
Not recently? No, thought not. The fact the city is at the heart of Scotland means it is easy to drive past, drive around to get somewhere else. It’s a town that doubles up as a roundabout.
After all, why would you go? Perth has a reputation as a sleepy, douce place. Handsome perhaps but unexciting. Not a destination venue. Yes, it is Scotland’s youngest city, a place full of history, one that stretches back to the time before the Romans. It was once the nation’s capital, the place where kings were crowned.
But what does it have to offer in the 21st century?
“People have a mindset that Perth is a wee, couthy place,” admits John Fyfe, senior deputy chief executive of Perth and Kinross Council. “And fundamentally that’s been holding us back.”
It’s a city, then, that needs a reputational facelift. And that’s why it has put in a bid to be the UK City of Culture in 2021. It
is hoping that if successful – and it is one of the favourites in the betting – the resulting interest will give it a chance to reinvent itself.

Do the words “culture” and “Perth” go together? More than you might think perhaps. The city has a rich cultural pedigree. If you do visit you can see the paintings of Scottish colourist JD Fergusson in a bespoke gallery beside the River Tay. The town is the birthplace of the poet William Soutar. Patrick Geddes, the father of town planning, was educated at Perth Academy. Oh, and Ewan McGregor was born just down the road in Crieff.
The city has important cultural institutions. The Perth Theatre, which Becky Minto came to work in, is being renovated and will reopen later this year. Author, broadcaster and Perth boy Stuart Cosgrove remembers having to go to Dundee, Glasgow and Edinburgh to see gigs. Nowadays the concert hall attracts big names (Michael Kiwanuka is playing in October).
In the circumstances, you might ask, why does Perth need the city of culture mantle? Isn’t Paisley, a post-industrial town fallen on hard times, a more obvious Scottish candidate?
But that is to be taken in by those aforementioned perceptions. In a meeting room in the council offices John Fyfe, deputy chief executive Jim Valentine and city of culture bid director Fiona Robertson are keen to tell me otherwise.
“There’s a perception about Perth that it’s affluent, perhaps a bit staid,” suggests Robertson. “But it’s serving a huge rural hinterland with a very large dispersed population with issues around rural poverty, social isolation, particularly of older people. These issues are not well understood or recognised.”
Austerity has hit Perth as much as anywhere else, it seems. Fyfe points to a recent fairness commission in the region which found that one in five children live in poverty, and four out of five people are in work poverty. “There’s been a 25 per cent increase in the use of food banks,” he adds.
Those are the hardcore problems that affect Perth and Kinross. On top of that there are other inhibiting factors. “Perth is a bit of a dormitory town,” suggests Fyfe. “We’ve got really good education here. Young people go through the system, they leave, they go to university and they don’t come back. There’s not enough opportunities here and I think the city of culture could be the catalyst that can enable a different type of job profile to be developed.”

It’s a point reinforced by Mark Riddell, the managing director of the Perth-based IT company M3 Networks when I speak to him later. “People looking at Perth from Glasgow or Edinburgh see it as big trees and farms. So anything that advertises Perth as a place to be, a place for business, is great. Getting good IT staff and recruiting is difficult.”
The council, in tandem with Angus, Fife and Dundee councils, is hoping to address these issues with the Tay Cities Deal, a £1.84 billion, 10-year initiative involving public, private and voluntary bodies aiming to “futureproof” the region. The city of culture bid, which has been funded to the tune of £250,000, with a further £150,000 promised if successful, is a key element in all of this.
“You can put forward projects and programmes but you need a catalyst, something that sparks the imagination and gets people to buy in,” suggests Valentine.
“It gets people excited. It’s getting businesses excited. Fiona and myself have been around most of the major businesses and they’re starting to look at the totality of the UK City of Culture bid and what it might offer.
“But we’re also injecting into these conversations things like the fairness commission and inequalities, things that big employers hadn’t seen.”
And that means? Conversations about the living wage for a start, he says.
“There’s also an issue around social isolation because of our big geography,” admits Robertson. “And within that there’s some difficult stuff about levels of cultural participation among our most deprived communities, because something like 37 per cent of households are categorised as either financially stretched or living in adversity.
“When you look within those communities the number of people
taking part in culture is quite low. It’s quite a difficult thing to measure but we think it’s probably less than 10 per cent.
“So we’ve got amazing cultural organisations here. We’ve got two producing theatres, the Pitlochry Festival Theatre and Perth Theatre, but we are not sure the breadth of our community are necessarily represented in the audiences.”
Well, yes. Some 90 per cent of them, it would seem. How do you turn that around?
“I don’t think anyone has got a silver bullet. Part of the answer is undoubtedly recognising the big shift towards – it’s a bit of a jargon term – citizen-led curatorship and citizen-led co-production of culture. Because social media and new and emerging technology provides so many different ways in which people can make their own culture, distribute it and comment on it.”
The three of them cite the example of the Norrie-Miller Walk Light Nights event at the end of January, a son et lumiere show on the banks of the Tay which saw 50,000 people attend. It’s the kind of thing they hope the city of culture bid will build on.
“We’ve looked in the bid at different ways of working with communities to design some of the programmes that will be delivered in 2021 if we win,” says Robertson.
All of which leads to the question: what happens if you don’t? Can you carry on with this work?
“We can and we will and we are doing anyway,” Robertson says. “We’ve got local action partnerships operating right across Perth and Kinross; public bodies sitting down with communities to talk about public services. What should they be? What are the priorities? How can they be better?”
What’s interesting in all of this is that using culture as a vehicle for economic, social and cultural change is no longer up for debate. The fact is the benefits to the cities that have been chosen to be cities of culture already – Liverpool, Derry-Londonderry and Hull – are inarguable. Made in Hull, the opening event of this year’s celebration in the Yorkshire city, attracted more than 340,000 people over seven days. If successful, Robertson suggests, “we would hope we could bring upwards of a million people into the area during 2021”.

After talking to Robertson, Fyfe and Valentine I wander around the city centre. If I’m honest I’m one of the many people who haven’t been to Perth much over the years. And I only live 40 minutes away. It’s a good-looking city centre, full of quirky stores off the main drag, but there are all the blights of any modern urban environment. Empty shops, rundown buildings. Cafe owners and customers in George Street moan about litter. It is a town like any other in that sense. But with the sun shining and the River Tay glittering it looks like a place you would want to spend time in.
Vennels have been painted for the city of culture bid and work is ongoing on Perth Theatre. That said, you have to look closely to see the city of culture branding in shop windows. It’s there but it isn’t shouting at you. Perth isn’t a place that shouts. Maybe it needs to do that more.

The bid is a chance for it to raise its voice. Win it and it becomes more difficult to drive by.
“I guess it puts it on the map,” says Becky Minto. “People will look at the city in a different way whether you live in or don’t live in it. You maybe take a second look and see it differently rather than driving past it on the bypass. You come in and have a look. And wouldn’t that be great?”

The 306: Day is touring. It can be seen at Nairn Community and Arts Centre on Wednesday, Fort Augustus Village Hall on Thursday, Ballachulish Village Hall on Friday and Three Villages Hall, Arrochar next Saturday