She probably has the best contacts book in London, but Justine Simons is too modest to boast about it.
“Your words, not mine,” she laughs as we talk about her being the “go to” person for her boss, London mayor Sadiq Khan, when his policies are in need of some celebrity sparkle.
But who else to credit for James Corden showing up when Khan hosted an expat event in Los Angeles on his US tour? Or who better to have in the room when ABBA’s Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus visit City Hall with an extraordinary idea for a new show?
As deputy mayor for culture, she’s on everyone’s guest list. Last month she saw David Tennant play Macbeth at the Donmar. On Sunday there was the Baftas. The Olivier awards are in the diary.
Next month she’ll jet off to a culture summit in Abu Dhabi. Surprisingly, Taylor Swift tickets are yet to be secured.
In the past couple of years, there’s been Elton John’s farewell tour. The Mercury music prize. The Serpentine summer party. Marina Abramovic at the Royal Academy. Dinner with Anya Hindmarch. Tamara Rojo at the English National Ballet. Cabaret at the Kit-Kat Club. Small Island at the National Theatre. “It’s hard to say no,” she says of the VIP invites.
At the premiere of ABBA Voyage, she and Sadiq danced in the aisles to the ‘Abbatars’ – the digital re-creations of the band in their Seventies heyday – in the purpose-built venue erected, at her suggestion, in the unlikely location of Pudding Mill Lane.
“They [Benny and Björn] came to us to ask for help in finding a space,” she says. “That was a nice day at City Hall. They wanted to bring it to London. At the time it was just a conceptual thing. I’m so proud that they chose London.”
Voyage has proved an incredible success – 1 million visitors and a £322m boost for the economy. She sees it a great example of the importance of culture – and how “London is moving east”.
The cultural and creative sector generates £50bn a year for London and supports one in five jobs. Culture is the reason for four out of five visitors to come to London.
Next up is East Bank, a £1.1bn project, part-funded by the mayor’s legacy quango, that has drawn major cultural players to the Olympic Park, and will cement the cultural legacy from the 2012 Games to an extent never before seen in a host city. However costs are rising: £93m in the past two years, which Simons says is due to Brexit, Covid and the war in Ukraine.
She has been working on the East Bank vision for so long “it’s like magic seeing it come to life – it’s almost unbelievable.
“It’s an incredible new cultural district for London, the first thing on this scale for 150 years,” she continues. “The last was after the Great Exhibition in 1851 – the Victoria and Albert museum and the Natural History Museum.”
East Bank will be for “all Londoners”, she says. “This is about world-class culture on your doorstep. We have got the V&A, the BBC, Sadler’s Wells, London College of Fashion, UCL. These are world-leading institutions in east London, on a contaminated site that used to be covered in fridges. It couldn’t be a better legacy.”
One of the biggest draws will be the David Bowie archive, which will be hosted by the V&A. Sadler’s Wells East, with a 550-seat dance theatre and the world’s first hip-hop academy, will open later this year. The V&A is due to open next year with an exhibition of black British music.
Simons has worked for all three London mayors. “Ken [Livingstone] was really pro-culture. When he came in, it was a very different landscape. There was no celebration of Chinese New Year in a civic way, there was no St Patrick’s Day parade or Diwali [festival], there was no New Year’s Eve fireworks. It’s an area that’s gone from niche to mainstream.
“In Boris [Johnson]’s time, the Olympics was the narrative. I was working on the cultural festival for London. It was the most ambitious thing we have ever done: 5,000 events, seven million people came to it. It created that real sense of celebration. Not everyone gets a ticket to the Olympic Games but the magic was spread all across the city.”
Khan promoted her from civil servant to deputy mayor for culture and the creative industries, a political role with a £141,400 salary.
“The brilliant thing about Sadiq is that he is the first mayor to say culture is a top priority,” she says. “That unlocked so much more – big new civic programmes like the London Borough of Culture.”
Khan returns the compliment. “One of the reasons that London is the cultural capital of the world is because of the contribution made by Justine,” he says. “I inherited some great staff. Justine is one of those people I inherited who has been brilliant. She is someone who understands the importance of culture, not just to our economy but also to the benefits to us socially and who we are as a city.
“Good culture reflects our city. Great culture shapes it. Justine has been a driving force in shaping our city.”
Khan is seeking a third mayoral term in May. Does she want to stay too? The answer appears to be yes, but she dare not say. “Who knows? I love my job but I don’t want to make any assumptions about who wins. My contract ends in May.”
Last month she added an honorary fellowship from Goldsmiths university to her OBE, cementing her status as a cultural powerhouse in her own right.
Stoke-born and invariably clad in an Instagram-ready, beautiful frock (“It’s just who I am”), she attributes her love of culture to dance classes in primary school. Prior to City Hall, she worked as a contemporary dance producer for a decade.
She helped put the first statue of a woman, the suffragist Millicent Fawcett, in Parliament Square. She co-chairs the mayor’s commission for diversity in the public realm. And she oversees the rolling programme of artwork on the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square – a scheme she would “definitely” like to see retained in perpetuity.
“I love it – it just keeps it fresh,” she says. “The thing about historical public realm is that you get used to it; you don’t notice it any more. You walk through London and it becomes a bit like wallpaper.
“But the Fourth Plinth surprises you with new ideas. I think it’s absolutely right that we have in our public realm a platform for that contemporary story. I love that it’s temporary. The great thing about it is that if you don’t like it, there will be another one [along soon].”
Antelope by Samson Kambalu has occupied the Fourth Plinth since September 2022. Next up will be 850 Improntas by Teresa Margolles, which will feature casts of the faces of 850 trans people. The shortlist for the two artworks that will follow that, in 2026 and 2028, includes an enormous sweet potato and a giant ice-cream van.
Does Simons have a favourite? “I couldn’t possibly say. I love them all for different reasons – I feel so close to them.
“The first one I worked on was Alison Lapper Pregnant – Marc Quinn’s. Because it was the first one I worked on, and because it was such a landmark moment, it really captured the public’s imagination. Everyone had an opinion on it. I like to say it [the Fourth Plinth] turns everyone into an art critic.”
The mayor’s commission for diversity aims to reflect contemporary society in the public realm. A memorial to the transatlantic slave trade will be unveiled beside the Museum of London Docklands in summer 2026, backed with £500,000 from City Hall. Suggestions for the first HIV/Aids memorial in London, to be erected off Tottenham Court Road, are being sought.
Is there a danger of too many memorials? “No. There are more statues of animals in London than named statues of women,” responds Simons. “The principle is: we want to see ourselves represented in our city. There is lots of space for stories.”
Next month will see the announcement of the next two London boroughs of culture. Already Waltham Forest, Brent, Lewisham, Croydon have held the honour, and the £1.35m winner’s cheque.
Simons is just as keen to nurture the grass roots as she is to rub shoulders with star names. She set up a “culture at risk” office, which provides help and support. Since the pandemic it has handled 1,500 cases. The idea has been copied by the mayor of New York.
Twelve “creative enterprise zones” have been established across the city. In Hackney and Tower Hamlets there is a focus on artists, in Westminster carnival, in Croydon music.
The mayor’s London Plan, the blueprint for future development across the capital, now offers a degree of protection to artists’ studios, grassroots music venues, LGBTQ+ clubs and pubs.
“It’s like a secret superpower,” says Simons. “It means if a big developer comes along but studios are already there, they have to protect them or re-provide them, so there is no net loss.”
What of the Sphere, the “glowing orb” that Khan refused to allow to be built on the edge of the Olympic park?
“I think it is the right decision,” she insists. “It was the wrong location. I’m sure it’s amazing in Las Vegas, but it’s a much bigger landscape in the desert. Would you want to have your flat next to it?”
When she started work at City Hall in 2002, there was a paragraph in the mayor’s strategy on culture. Now there is an entire chapter. How far have we come?
“I think we have repositioned culture at the centre of London’s identity. Now there is a greater understanding of the value of culture to our city, and how it can enrich our lives.
“London is an amazing, world-creative capital but we can’t take it for granted. I see my job as trying to keep us at the top of our game.”
