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Peter Davis, 72, is the artistic director of The Harwich Festival and trustee at the Harwich Arts and Heritage Centre.
The Standard spoke to Peter and other team members during a week-day morning meeting following a major announcement about the hub’s future.
Based in Main Road, the Harwich Arts and Heritage Centre was built in 1909 as part of the town’s former high school and is now directly next to the Mayflower Primary School.
The non-profit centre has now signed a long-term lease with Essex County Council with Peter saying: “We now have a 25-year lease of the building and including in that lease is what is known as a repairing lease, so we are responsible for all repairs.
“Previously we were responsible for everything inside the building… now we are responsible for everything outside like windows.”
Peter said a big issue was taking on the windows in the building – which is not listed – and he said it was a long-term project to make the repairs with windows starting to be replaced in January.
The team has applied for a fund of just under £10,000 to upgrade their toilets which have not been for a very long time.
Peter said now due to the lease, they can further modernise the building.
When asked about the timing of the lease with local government reorganisation, Peter said a lot of the leases are being fixed now ahead of the changes.
The centre will pay a small rent, and it receives rent from others which goes towards utilities and investments.
He said: “We have about four-to-five hundred people who use the centre every week.
“It is a big undertaking, and I think it just show the confidence we’ve got in terms of what we are doing.”
As well as the new lease causing major change, another factor is how the centre was the home for Harwich Library as it was redeveloped for a year until last September.
Peter said the refurbished library in Upper Kingsway was positive for the town.
When asked about the difficulties of hosting the temporary library, Peter said: “People now know where we are because we hosted the library from September 2024 to end of September 2025.
“And that we are only a 10-minute walk from the town centre and now the library is gone, there’s hole there as we moved stuff away.”
This means the charity is eager for the public and groups to get in touch with them about hosting sessions particularly during the daytime when the library was active.
A combined dance group for people with autism has already filled a slot and following a social media call-out, a vintage railway club is being set up.
From this new activity, there has been talks of a new vintage collectible fair – further promoting Harwich.
With the centre being a key driver of the economy and community interests, Peter mentions how the Harwich Festival – which has the same board as the centre – is involved in the £750,000 arts funding boost.
None of the money will go to the centre, with Peter saying: “The funds are being used to help local people in Tendring identify what Arts and Culture they want and to bring it about”.
“Now those people are telling us what they want to do and running their own festivals.
“We are purely there to facilitate what they want to do.”
As well as helping other people run their own festivals, the centre’s flagship programme, the Harwich Festival, is a highly significant one for the town.
The festival began as a classical musical festival in the late 1970s and festival director Chris Berwick says this year will start off with the Shuff and Byng performance.
There will be a narration of the Iliad with early music input with the Colchester Waits, an event about Catherine of Aragon, and other events which are to be announced.
Chris said what he liked about the festival was unlike other for-profit venues he can choose non-mainstream acts such as his selected comedy act about badgers.
Likewise, Nigel Clarke from Dodgy, a 90s Britpop band, will perform at the festival.
Another draw will be a three-day Lego Festival as the festival’s warm-up event and Chris will also be updating the website.
When asked about his favourite part of his role which he has had since 2020, Chris said: “For me it’s been people.
“I’ve met so many people from different organisations, and we’ve made good contacts with people, with seeing how the festival as a whole has helped people.
“So, with the holiday fun programme, we made really strong connections with some families who are on very low incomes which even though we don’t run that project anymore, they still pop in to do events and say hello.”
Peter said the Harwich Festival is about balancing mainstreams acts which sell with unique events which expand people’s experiences – their remit.
Peter said none of the expansion including the lease would be possible without choosing to expand the centre by hiring two paid employees – Chris Berwick as full-time and Monique de Vlieger who works part-time.
Peter added: “We’re just now saying to people, come on.
“We’ve got space. We’ve got experience in applying for funding. So, talk to us. We’ll help you do that.”
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