Matthew Slotover

Go on.

Didn't she call it the coolest city in the world?

Something like that, yeah.

And Turner's a really big part of it as well.

Yeah, I'm chair of Turner.

Chair, sorry, yeah.

So Turner, contemporary, big 16,000 square feet, Dave Chipperfield Design Gallery space in Margate opened in 20, that's about 13 years ago, 2012, 2013.

and has a new director clary wallace who joined in 21 and i joined in 22 and the program has been absolutely incredible clary was at the tape before that and you know last year alone there was a photography show about resistance curated by steve mcqueen and there was a bridget riley show shows that any gallery in the world would kill to have and we had it and

Currently, there's a David Hockney window drawing.

There's these amazing windows that go into the sea.

I mean, the program is amazingly good.

Outside London, it's the most visited gallery in the country.

It's bigger than Tate's now.

It's bigger than Tate Liverpool.

It's 400,000 people a year.

It's incredible.

You know, Margate's a town of 50,000 people, so you're not going to build something like the Aviva Centre that used to be called the Factory in Manchester, which is a huge 5,000-person venue there.

In fact, there is a 2,000-person venue, the Winter Gardens in Margate, that I think is being renovated.

it's quite different the big investment was Turner and that was you know Kent County Council still fund it it's by far their biggest I think half the arts budget of Kent goes into that one building so it's a big it's a big investment the Arts Council um mirrors that funding as well so that's the kind of biggest one the big money goes to the big cities and that's appropriate the kind of community and the buzz and the artist movement there has come partly because it's cheap

And partly because it's an hour and a half from London.