Major venues to reopen as Leicester unveils jobs-boosting five-year city plan

Two of Leicester's most significant cultural venues - the Haymarket Theatre and Jewry Wall Roman Experience - will finally reopen in 2025 as part of a five-year city plan. The plan aims to create thousands of creative jobs and boost arts engagement across the city.

The five-year strategy, published by Leicester City Council, outlines plans for new creative workspaces, venue developments, and a signature arts festival. The plan also acknowledges that significant parts of the city's population are currently underserved by cultural offerings, and that the creative economy remains disproportionately white.

New learning and rehearsal spaces will be built at the Haymarket Theatre, in-addition to dance facilities, funded by capital investment. The council said venue will offer public performances alongside its educational role, with programming designed to complement existing city venues.

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The city plan sets out aims to grow Leicester's creative workforce by 28 per cent by 2030, creating 4,400 new jobs. This growth will be supported said the council by 100,000 sq ft of new creative workspaces across two developments - the 40,000 sq ft 'Canopy' creative hub and three new 'DOCK' workspaces, both opening in 2025.

The Jewry Wall Roman Experience will open following the council's complete renovation of the Trevor Dannatt building, the grand re-opening of Leicester’s long-awaited Jewry Wall Museum has been delayed until the summer.

Sir Peter Soulsby, Leicester City Mayor, said: "Over the past decade and working with our many partners the council has been able to directly invest more than £75m of capital to improve our cultural and creative economy and we remain hugely ambitious for the future of the city."

The strategy document published by the council also states that a very significant proportion of Leicester's Muslim population is currently underserved by cultural offerings, and work is now underway to address this. It said the city's new All In Leicester Community Interest Company (CIC) will help improve consistency of accessibility standards across arts and cultural venues.

The council also acknowledged that data shows the wider creative economy remains disproportionately white and many parts are still less accessible for working class communities.

Mike Dalzell, Director of Tourism, Culture and Investment at the city council, said: "These venues will play a crucial role in Leicester's cultural future, but we recognise that the creative economy remains disproportionately white and less accessible for working class communities. We're determined to change that."

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