17 organisations have been chosen as the 2026 recipients of Essex County Council’s Cultural Development Project Fund and the Creative Industries Project Development Fund, which focus on growing and supporting local talent and Essex’s creative industries.
Creative Industries Project Development Fund
Animating Education
Animated Essex is a county wide creative programme delivered across Basildon, Chelmsford, Harlow, Harwich and Southend, empowering young people to explore identity, heritage and community through animation and digital storytelling. The project develops creative skills, supports pathways into the screen industries and culminates in public screenings of youth led films.
Creative Colchester CIC
Will deliver a two-part continuation of their Creative Careers Progression Programme. This initiative will support young people and emerging creatives in Colchester through a combination of creative workshop days and careers guidance for secondary school students, alongside meaningful mentoring for recent graduates entering the creative industries.
Dlala Studios
After nearly 14 years working with major publishers like Disney and Xbox Game Studios, the Witham-based Dlala Studios will create a new self-publishing arm to release its upcoming, yet-to-be-announced game. This key organisational growth will enable Dlala Studios to support other game developers and help grow the games industry within Essex.
Little Wild Ones
This project aims to develop a practical approach to museum storytelling, using animation to bring objects to life and help more people connect with collections in clear, engaging and accessible ways.
New Waverley Studios
Will launch six-month creative digital arts programme, Estuary Dreams Academy, for 16 emerging filmmakers aged 21-30.
Roots 2 Success
The Strong Roots Program uses hairdressing as a creative art form to engage young people who feel disconnected from traditional education, combining practical skills with self-expression and confidence building. Through a structured 6-week programme, participants develop their creativity, communication, and sense of identity within a supportive environment.
The Hermit Club CIC
Will support young people aged 10-24 across Essex through free, inclusive music programmes, which, will strengthen progression into creative careers.
Cultural Development Project Fund
Culture Chelmsford
SPARK! Young Cultural Changemakers will partner with Anglia Ruskin University for the Chelmsford Science Festival, delivering a lively programme of gaming events across the city this October. Working with local partners, the programme will celebrate gaming culture and highlight the many career paths it can lead to, alongside a range of hands-on workshops and activities for all ages. The gaming fringe will give young people the chance to take the lead, bring communities together, and open up opportunities in creative technology especially for those who might not usually have access.
Coda Dance
Our Worlds Collide is a bold, inclusive dance production about family dynamics and the complexity of communication. CoDa Dance Company’s most ambitious project to date, the work is borne of choreographer and Artistic Director Nikki Watson’s personal experience of caring for a parent with a degenerative illness. Our Worlds Collide hopes to give audiences the courage to start difficult conversations.
Enterprise East
Café Cornell: the Musical will bring together the talented students of Enterprise East Group and The Garden Youth Music Project. We will deliver a year-long series of inclusive workshops, culminating in the design, rehearsal, and performance of a wholly original musical theatre production inspired by real stories of Café Cornell – a community café in Saffron Walden.
Essex Book Festival
Essex Book Festival is hosting an exciting new programme of activities for young people across Essex under the banner of THE YOUNG ONES. Everything from its Letters to the Future Zine-Making Workshops and Eco Ink-Making & Print Workshops, through to the launch of a new podcast The Book Worm in partnership with Chelmsford Community Radio.
Roman River Music
Will appoint a professional Creative Producer who will have the “headroom” needed not just to maintain existing success, but to innovate – ensuring that Roman River Music can reach broader, more diverse audiences while securing its future as a cornerstone of Essex’s cultural life for the next 25 years.
Saffron Music Trust
Saffron Music Trust will be supported to evolve into a county-wide music provider, expanding high-quality activity across Essex through increased staff capacity. This will drive sustainable growth and help the organisation to transition into a music and education charity for the whole county.
Stagetext
Cultural Development Funding will support Stagetext to provide Deaf Awareness Training to 120 people working and volunteering in Essex’s cultural sector, so that the 1 in 3 of us who are deaf, deafened or hard of hearing are warmly welcomed into all kinds of cultural spaces. The funding also enables Stagetext to upskill captioners in Essex, so that more theatre shows can be made accessible with captions.
The Nose
Sunshine Coast Line Filmmakers is a new initiative designed to grow a vibrant, sustainable community in and around Walton-on-the-Naze and the wider Tendring district. Based at The Nose Bookshop and project space in Walton-on-the-Naze, the project will host a monthly film club, a series of workshops for young filmmakers, and launch a winter film festival, making a visible platform for independent filmmakers working along Essex’s Sunshine Coast.
We Are Music
Will deliver Hamford Sessions, a live performance programme for emerging artists in Tendring and North Essex. Artists will be paid to showcase their songs at either intimate indoor events or summer outdoor evenings where they grow their audience and develop their performance skills.
Wyrd Flora
Blue Steps is a creative environmental project reconnecting communities with Essex’s hidden water landscapes through ecology, art, heritage and walking routes, helping imagine more resilient local futures.
All the initiatives meet both grant funds criteria by providing local community and cultural opportunities and ensuring that the county’s creative economy is strengthened.
To find out more about either fund visit: www.culture-essex.co.uk/funding
