In 2020-21, thanks to a grant from Youth Music, SoundStorm commissioned Dr Phil Mullen, the highly respected independent music education consultant, to critically assess our offer at that time and devise for us a new, ambitious Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Strategy. Phil’s work was completed in 2021 and made a number of recommendations to make our Hub more inclusive. You can read Phil’s full ‘Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Strategy’ here.

Phil’s Strategic Priority recommendations for the Hub were all accepted and we also agreed with an overall aim of targeting at least 25% of our Hub budget on musical inclusion activities by 2026 which we are pleased to say has been achieved. 

In 2024, SoundStorm was successful in its Music Hub Investment Process bid as part of the larger regional consortium ‘South Coast Music Partnership’ to lead the new expanded Music Hub area covering Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole (BCP), Isle of Wight, Portsmouth and Southampton from September 2024. The consortium established a new Inclusion Strategy building upon the Hub’s needs analysis and other strategies, plans and policies, further details of which can be seen here: Inclusion — South Coast Music Partnership.