Streatham has a long history of community arts activity, and there have been earlier celebrations of creativity branded as the Streatham Festival that sadly did not last the course.The current Streatham Festival was founded by local resident Mel Larsen in 2002 with the first events held on Saturday 15th June at St Leonards Church and Hillside Gardens Park. With the active support of then Town Centre Manager Leah Levane and the Rector of St Leonard’s, Jeffry Wilcox, the event showcased local talent such the Streatham Choral Society and the (now internationally famous) poet Malika Booker.

In these early years the Festival was successful in attracting Arts Council England funding which allowed us to commission and present exciting work including Creatmosphere’s site specific sculptures in light at St Leonard’s in 2003 and to bring nationally acclaimed theatre and dance groups to Streatham to work with local schools and community groups.
Mel led the festival for 5 years with a small team of hard-working local volunteers including Nick McCrae, Robert Doyle, Anna Godsiff and Patricia Sauer, during which time it grew to be a week-long annual fixture. Mel was given a Lambeth Civic Award in 2007 for her work on the festival.

The Festival became independent of Lambeth’s Streatham Town Centre Office in 2009, and subsequent Chairs of the Streatham Festival Association have been Patricia Sauer, Paul Cutts, Chix Chandaria, Helen Smith, Janet Leatherland, Jo Blawat and now Héloïse Anderson.

We were lucky enough to benefit from funding from the Mayor’s ‘Outer London Fund’ for three years from 2013 (with partnership funding from Lambeth) which allowed us to resume hosting an annual large scale event for the community on Streatham Common.  In a tougher funding climate for the arts, the Festival has subsequently had to change our focus away from the risky business of promoting our own major events to emphasise partnership and promotion of events with local arts groups and venues.The festival has always had a strong visual arts strand, starting with Mel Larsen’s ‘Yellow Bowl’ shows, more recently with the ‘Art 23’ art trails project curated from 2013 to 2015 by Emma Condliffe, and now with the mix of show forming StreatArt.

The success of the Festival depends on our sponsorship from local businesses and donations from local trusts and individuals.   In particular, we are immensely grateful for the generous long term support of Anthony Gold Solicitors, and the more modest but welcome annual contributions from Streatham Rotary and the Streatham Society.

The Festival has also sought to promote Streatham as a place for the arts all year round.  Thanks to Pat Sauer’s assiduous campaigning, an arts and theatre space was included in the development brief for the former Locarno/Caesar’s site at Streatham Hill, which is now completed and operating as Streatham Space Project.