Where has Bish Vegas gone? The Auckland Project,post-secular urban restructuring and evangelical philanthrocapitalism

Introduction

A strange story of urban revitalisation through evangelical philanthrocapitalism is unfolding in a small town in North-East England. Bishop Auckland offers a case study of small-town economic decline accelerated by austerity and a cost-of-living crisis. Fifteen years ago, there was a lively nightlife scene in what locals referred to as ‘Bish Vegas’ – pubs, bars, restaurants and takeaways located around the main square (Moffatt, 2018). Bish Vegas dwindled, with businesses closing one by one as the nightlife – when people could afford it – shifted to the nearby cities of Durham or Newcastle, UK. An unlikely plan spearheaded by philanthropist and City of London financier Jonathan Ruffer aims to radically transform Bishop Auckland’s urban centre and economy through the development of tourism. Ruffer is a high net worth individual (HNWI) who made his fortune founding a successful fund, Ruffer LLP. Khan (2016) emphasises the critical need for understanding how structures work upon elites, the governance systems they use and the construction of elite interests. Advancing recent debates on philanthrocapitalism, religion and urban co-governance, this article shows the role of HNWI religiously motivated philanthropy in small-town urban development in times of economic change.

Under Ruffer’s charities, the Auckland Project and 11Arches, seven new cultural attractions in Bishop Auckland have opened since 2016. Most remarkable of the new culture and arts landscape are Kynren: An Epic Tale of England, an outdoor performance with a cast of 1000 that tells a story of Britain over 2000 years; the Spanish Gallery, opened in October 2021, including works by Masters El Greco (1541–1614) and Diego Velázquez (1599–1660); and, most recently, the Faith Museum. The centrepiece of Bishop Auckland’s revitalisation is Auckland Castle, former residence of the Prince Bishops of Durham and now home to wealthy donor Ruffer and his family. Shaw and Richardson (2022: 358) rightly identify that there is ‘much more’ that can be said about the Auckland Project and philanthropy, including ‘the power it grants the philanthropist in a small town’ and ‘the broader role of philanthropy in cultural-heritage or regeneration projects’. Bishop Auckland’s Heritage Action Zone (2018–2023) offers a prominent example of new urban governance arrangements in the town, with the stated aim to diversify the centre towards a visitor economy to address long-term decline and to improve the condition of historic buildings (Historic England and Durham County Council, 2023). Urban co-governance in the town involves multiple public and private stakeholders: local government, a government agency and non-elected ‘local partners’, notably The Auckland Project.

Critical and urban policy interest in philanthrocapitalism is growing. Philanthrocapitalism combines philanthropy and capitalism, where wealthy individuals or their organisational entities invest in interests that are privately owned and profit making (Kapsali, 2024; Tedesco, 2015). Parallels drawn between philanthrocapitalism and religious actors identify how the ‘normalising pressure’ of philanthrocapitalism in the production, embodiment and reproduction of neoliberal rationalities bears similarity to the ‘proselytising by religious actors’ to ‘pressure recipients and other stakeholders to conform’ (Haydon et al., 2021: 359; see also McGoey and Thiel, 2018). However, little has been written about how philanthrocapitalism and religious actors come together, or the wider confluence of philanthropy with religion in urban studies (see Berger, 2006; Du et al., 2014; Harrow, 2010). This oversight is surprising given a history of religiously motivated philanthropy in the USA, UK and elsewhere, where the narrative has followed traditional religious charity to more strategic, professionalised and secular forms of philanthropic giving (King, 2018). In the USA, prominent philanthropic and business figures such as Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, J. Howard Pew and Henry R Luce led the transformation of philanthropy. Religiously motivated giving primarily to religious institutions transitioned towards the establishment of foundations to bring about wider societal impact – from hospitals, to libraries, to universities to museums. In the UK, the historical philanthropic roles of religiously motivated wealthy industrialists also sought to deliver societal impact, including through urban design by developing ‘model’ urban villages. Well-known examples are Sir Titus Salt, a Protestant Reformist, who established Saltaire, Bradford, in 1851 (Yates, 2024), or George Cadbury, a Quaker, who built Bournville, Birmingham, from 1893 (Bailey and Bryson, 2007). In Saltaire and Bournville, which later were acknowledged as influential for the 19th-century Garden City movement in the UK and internationally (Batchelor, 1969; Howard, 1902; see also Cook et al., 2015), attractive urban design and public amenities combined with a moral vision of abstinence. No public drinking houses were allowed within the urban village boundaries. Other scholarly attention has been given to religious actors in land markets and urban planning (Gale, 2008; Gale and Naylor, 2002; Lawanson, 2021; Manouchehrifar and Forester, 2021). This article brings together multidisciplinary debates on philanthropy, religion and urban governance to advance understanding of how religion and capital are reshaping an economically vulnerable town.

More specifically, it contributes new thinking on how evangelical philanthropy joins together with austerity urbanism, culture and heritage in emergent arrangements of post-secular urban governance. Evangelical philanthrocapitalism as a concept articulates distinctive motivations, investments and mechanisms. It is shaped by the convergence of Christian fundamentalism and wealth investment in an area of historic religious significance for stated purposes of urban and social regeneration. Recently, McGuirk (2025: 2–4) called for the urgent need for ‘more expanded empirically grounded geographies’ that move beyond macro-theory to ‘further demystify philanthropy’ in place. Analysing evangelical philanthrocapitalism in urban heritage revitalisation, this article advances a growing area of scholarship on HNWIs and philanthropy in urban studies and geography that has focussed on the significance of place (Fuentenebro and Acuto, 2022; Hay and Muller, 2014). It also contributes towards a longer debate in urban studies on economic elites in decision making that has focussed on local business leaders and ‘mavericks’ (see Peck, 1995). Urban elites in the UK have taken control from democratically elected councillors in the name of ‘partnership’ and ‘business interests’ but often serve as the mouthpiece of the central government party with whom they are aligned (Peck, 1995: 17).

Taking forward a commitment to place, but moving away from a focus on cities, there is a need to consider the transformational power and attendant politics of HNWI philanthropy elsewhere. Place-based philanthropy to revitalise areas is not new, even if it remains underexplored. Examples include Irlam and Cadishead, Greater Manchester, by founder of TalkTalk Neil McArthur in 2004 (Pidd, 2018), or Sark, one of the Channel Islands, by the Barclays Brothers in 2007 (de Castella, 2015). Answering McGuirk’s call for demystifying philanthropy further, this article reveals how religion is remoulding culture through HNWI small-town urban asset investment. Philanthrocapitalism is combined with a religious mission to revitalise a ‘left-behind’ place. Philanthropic giving in North-East England in culture and heritage is an important precursor to the ‘levelling-up’ Conservative central government policy agenda to redistribute wealth regionally (Agrawal and Phillips, 2020; Fransham et al., 2023). It identifies the issue of non-democratically elected wealthy individuals exerting power and control over urban change, and the vulnerability of peripheral places, including towns and small cities, to withdrawal.

In this article, I introduce philanthrocapitalism and how it intersects with austerity and urban transformation, before discussing religion and philanthropy. Next, I explore the context of Bishop Auckland in more depth, and the methodology used for investigating place-based philanthropy. The article then investigates the role that religion and wealth plays in public–private coalitions in an analysis of post-secular urban governance, with a focus on cultural and heritage revitalisation. Finally, exploring narrative dissonance, it discusses the evangelical HNWI vision and motivations of philanthropic giving in the redevelopment of a ‘left-behind place’, before addressing local resident narratives and roles in unfolding urban cultural transformation.

Philanthrocapitalism, austerity and urban transformation

It has been argued that the past 30 years have seen a golden age of philanthropy (Hay and Muller, 2014). In this time, philanthropic giving has increased in cities and city-regions in Europe, Asia and North America (Fuentenebro and Acuto, 2022; Shapiro, 2018), and in north–south global development (Mediavilla and Garcia-Arias, 2019; Montero, 2020). A close relationship between philanthropy and crisis has been identified (Klein, 2007), where global events such as the 2008 financial crash and 2020 Covid-19 pandemic created fertile conditions for new urban governance arrangements and investments, including by HNWIs and philanthropic institutions (Fuentenebro and Acuto, 2022). A retrenchment of the state under austerity, for reasons attributed to the need to tighten the public purse or ideological arguments for a smaller state, leaves a vacuum for private actors to exert greater control over services, land use and policy (Warren and Jones, 2015). Analysing an acute period of economic cuts and stagnation since the late 2000s, literature on austerity urbanism reveals how the delivery of services and spatial capture by private actors or new coalitions in cities and towns becomes increasingly normalised (Theodore, 2020). In contexts of urban austerity, Kapsali (2024) powerfully argues that the alignment of state and non-state actors in outward-looking governance arrangements in philanthrocapitalism can be understood as post-political urban governance (see also Blakey, 2021). Moving beyond a model of governance by democratically elected figures (Davidson and Iveson, 2015), the post-political is manifest in how different actors, values and agendas are engaged in coalitions and arrangements for urban governance. As the case study of Bishop Auckland reveals, even within a dominant secular society the significant roles of religious actors, religious values and beliefs in new urban coalitions and arrangements should not be overlooked.

Philanthrocapitalism gained traction as a term in policy circles and academia from the late 2000s onwards. Bishop and Green (2008) brought the term to a wider audience through their book Philanthrocapitalism: How Giving Can Save the World. Bishop and Green advocate for a positive approach to the phenomenon where individuals replace the social function of the state, occupying a political space created by the withdrawal of the state and its various agencies (see MacLeod, 2002; Peck, 2015). The neologism is an amalgamation of two critical concepts: philanthropy and capitalism. Philanthrocapitalism is marked in debate by neoliberalism where the means of production is privately owned and profit making (Tedesco, 2015) and a ‘top-down (i.e. rich-to-poor) process’ (Haydon et al., 2021: 366), where HNWIs and linked institutions control decision making. But critiques of a paternalist or ‘trickle-down’ model such as by Hay and Muller (2014) challenge whether top-down processes are driving change in addressing inequality or entrenching unequal societies. McGoey (2012: 191) identifies the paradox of capitalising from and simultaneously seeking to combat conditions together with ‘the flaunting of increasingly concentrated levels of wealth as an inherent safeguard of the common good’.

While there is a long-standing intellectual tradition of thinking on the economy and ethics (see Smith, 1776; Weber, 1930), inequalities are growing globally under current neoliberal conditions. Especially significant to debate is whether philanthrocapitalism is sufficient for, or even concerned with, challenging power geometries that cause inequality and injustice (see Kapsali, 2024). This raises two key issues: (i) the importance of the wealthy individual and their interests regarding urban policy and change; and (ii) whether capitalism and markets can address social inequality. There are three linked points that arise in relation to The Auckland Project.

First, a major concern with philanthrocapitalism is the significant power that wealthy actors can wield within society and urban policy making (Haydon et al., 2021; McGoey, 2012). The issue of the influence and accountability of wealthy actors involved in philanthropic giving is particularly pressing when applied to the urban governance of small cities and towns where there are fewer actors – or only one actor – seeking to invest.

Second, philanthrocapitalism is not uniformly spread geographically and across different sectors and social concerns. Donations by the super-wealthy are typically focused on large cities and a handful of interest areas (Higgins, 2022). High status and prestigious investments in cultural and educational institutions, often pejoratively termed ‘vanity projects’, that do not address fundamental social welfare needs are more typical. Philanthrocapitalism therefore raises issues that instead of contributing through taxation, where funding is decided through elective democracy, private investment in certain areas of interest might be in misalignment or in tension with addressing social inequalities.

Third, given the current political economic context, however, philanthrocapitalism might help to counter regionalism, and the concentration of public funding, infrastructure and jobs in capital cities. Dorling and Hennig (2016) identify vast regional inequality in the geography of the super-rich in England and Ireland, which includes deeply uneven geographies of philanthropic giving. There is a potential role that philanthrocapitalism can perform in championing regional geography and small towns, and spreading investment and resources beyond global and major cities. Therefore, this article advances debates on the distribution of philanthropy beyond privileged locations and institutions, furthering ideas on ‘better philanthropy’ (Fuentenebro et al., 2024: 14) with a special focus on urban cultural and heritage revitalisation.

A star over Bishop Auckland? Religion, society and new forms of philanthropic giving

Modern understanding of philanthropy has roots in Europe in the beginning of the 17th century when wealthy elites founded mutual aid societies and advocated for humanitarian reforms (Hay and Muller, 2014). The founding of the modern welfare state in the UK following the Second World War in 1948 created a tax-funded system for state-delivered service provision to improve access to health, education and housing for the general public (Fraser, 2017). While some argue that the welfare state replaced philanthropy, the return of the idea of noblesse oblige – of a paternalist sense of duty and social responsibility – and the combination of philanthropy and state in addressing social causes and in the delivery of services has been identified in new arrangements and coalitions (McGoey and Thiel, 2018). Recent studies have identified how giving to others by wealthy donors is viewed as part of a moral framework and path to self-fulfilment (Schervish, 2006). On the one hand, the transformation of HNWI philanthropy into professionalised foundations and trusts has shown wider societal ambitions to make a difference, domestically and internationally (King, 2018). On the other, inconsistent moral arguments are exercised in elite hereditary wealth transfer where heirs are trained in wealth management skills for philanthropic investments to teach social values and secure family legacies (Higgins, 2022). Donating can offer justification and legitimisation of wealth, as a means to demonstrate the goodness and values of elites (Sklair and Glucksberg, 2021; see also Kapoor, 2016). Philanthrocapitalism thereby allows for HNWIs to control their wealth and interests in causes that appear to act as a social good.

Few studies globally have looked in detail at religious values and philanthropic giving. While there is limited research, extant scholarship suggests that moral understanding will vary extensively across different societies and cultures (Khan, 2016). In work on philanthropy in the Arab region, Farouky (2016) shows how giving is deeply enmeshed with Islamic and Christian religious traditions, with anonymous donation the most highly revered. Du et al. (2014) focus on how religion, in particular Buddhism and Taoism, positively influences corporate philanthropy in China. Meanwhile, Kuldova (2017) situates Indian philanthropy within transnational ties and flows, with linkages to the UK and the USA, while arguing for a distinctive Indian lineage of ‘gifting’ (Appadurai and Breckenridge, 1976) as part of religious scriptures, political structures and patronage. Articulating local embeddedness, Kuldova (2017: 58) shows how ‘morality had to be reinserted into the market’ to respond to localised critiques of neoliberal capitalism and economic inequalities.

While few studies directly address religiously motivated actors and philanthropic giving, work has shown the changing roles of religious actors in public life. Religious studies scholar Linda Woodhead observes that in Britain in the years from the 1960s to the 1990s, while ‘narratives of secularisation were prevalent’ and ‘religion seemed to many people to have gone away’, in fact religion in society was in transition:

The religious field was in fact transforming outside the control of state and church and in relation to new opportunities of market and media. This time of ‘deregulation’ allowed new religious actors to emerge – both ethnic minorities and women – so that when religion came to public notice again after the late 1980s, it was more varied and multifaceted than before. (Woodhead, 2012: 1)

Writing in 2012, Woodhead explains that while Britain is a secular country and state, most people still call themselves Christian. Despite a fall in people identifying as Christian since, recent academic research and available Census 2021 data patterns complicate a simple secularisation narrative, with a growth in spiritualism, more visibility of religious actors in public life and global flows of religion being increasingly important (see Woodhead, 2017). From the early 2000s, faith groups in the UK were called upon as part of ‘networked urban governance’ (Stoker, 2004: 1). A decentred urban governance model incorporated a broad array of mechanisms and stakeholders, often involving competing sets of beliefs (Bevir, 2005). Faith groups and faith actors were mostly enrolled for brokerage: to deliver strategies by drawing on their embedded knowledge and community assets, and, relatedly, to support community cohesion (Stoker, 2004; see also Dinham, 2006). Over a decade of austerity, the role of religious actors and organisations has grown in what was originally the welfare state, in poverty relief and food banks. Religion is also present in other, less scrutinised areas. While public funding for culture and the arts in Britain is largely secular (Warren, 2022a, 2022b), church restoration funded by Heritage Lottery, English Heritage and Historic England grants reveal how a separation of religion from the state is not always clear-cut, especially in national heritage sites.

Significantly, the majority of UK-based philanthropy is donated within the capital city of London (Harvie, 2015). One-third of all grants by the largest philanthropic organisations are made into London; and Gift Aid donations in London were four times higher than the UK average (Menon, 2024: 6–7). Underscoring the geographical divide, Dorling and Hennig (2016) write on the geographical ‘gross inequalities’ of public funding in the UK where Arts Council England funding is also concentrated in the capital city. Strikingly, the majority of Arts Council England funding is generated by the National Lottery – with the ‘poorest return’ per local authority level experienced by County Durham (the regional home of Bishop Auckland), whose Lottery players have contributed £33 million since 2015 but have only received £12 million (Dorling and Hennig, 2016: 2). To improve the geographical distribution of funding for culture and the arts, Arts Council England as part of their ‘Levelling Up for Culture Places’ and ‘Priority Places’ initiatives pledged an additional £43.5 m for the period of 2022–2025 for outside of London (Arts Council England, 2021: 29). HNWI philanthropic giving has the potential to contribute towards addressing geographical inequity though wealth investment and leveraging public funding. In the words of HNWI Ruffer on the need for cultural philanthropic investment in North-East England: ‘I felt very strongly that the North does not get the same deal as the South’ (Ruffer and Portillo, 2023: 04:13).

There is nothing for you here? A context of Bishop Auckland

Bishop Auckland was once extremely wealthy as a central residence of the Prince Bishops of Durham, with Auckland Castle remaining the seat of the modern Bishops of Durham from 1832 to 2012. The Prince Bishops of Durham held considerable ecclesiastical and secular power over the town and the wider North-East region. But the centralisation of Church of England finances from 1835 led to a gradual weakening of the diocese of Durham and Auckland Castle (Durham County Council, 2016). In 2010, the Church Commission of the Church of England decided to sell Auckland Castle, the linked 800-acre estate and five religious works from the series ‘Jacob and His 12 Sons’ by Spanish 17th-century artist Francisco de Zurbarán. The investment of private equity and capture of public funding for urban revitalisation of a place with historic importance to Christianity can be observed as part of the broader story of post-secularism and deregulation.

Originally termed The Auckland Castle project, the urban scope and ambition grew to include the town centre and was renamed The Auckland Project (or TAP). Bishop Auckland has a population of c. 25,000 and is the second largest urban area in County Durham, after the city of Durham. Once a thriving market town with a successful amateur football club, Bishop Auckland’s economy and workforce were highly reliant on the railways and nearby coal, steel and iron industries. The financial crash of 2008, and subsequent austerity measures put into place between 2010 and 2015 by a coalition government of Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, entrenched a post-industrial economic downturn in the town and wider region. Hastings et al. (2017) show how the UK followed a path of ‘austerity urbanism’ where central government passed economic cuts to local councils, most impacting the urban poor and already marginalised. Ward at al. (2015) connect ongoing cycles of budgetary cuts to a continued weakening of the power base of local councils to offer oppositional politics.

Feminist geography, political economy and urban studies scholarship identifies how austerity shapes intimate lives, including the material and emotional impact upon families and everyday lives (see Hall, 2015, 2019). While by some measures regional inequalities have decreased – with a small fall in income inequality – overall wealth inequalities, higher gaps in education outcomes for those children receiving free school meals and health inequalities have widened (Agrawal and Phillips, 2020: 27–28). Adults live a shorter life in the County Durham region than the national average; with the average male healthy life expectancy 4.3 years less than the national average (63.1 > 58.8), and the average female healthy life expectancy four years less than the national average (63.9 > 59.9; Bambra, 2023: 8). Meanwhile, County Durham has a higher percentage than the national average of children living in both relative (23.6%) and absolute poverty (19.6%), with the figure growing by a wider margin than nationally.

Given economic decline and poor health outcomes, the small town in the North-East is often symbolic of a ‘left-behind place’ (Finlay et al., 2019). Political turns including a pro-Brexit majority vote and the fall of a ‘Red Wall’ seat are used by political actors to emphasise a post-industrial and insular urban identity (Hill, 2021). Emblematic of this approach is the title of the autobiography of Fiona Hill, born in Bishop Auckland and since US Presidential adviser: There Is Nothing for You Here (Hill, 2021). The impactful title is taken from advice given by her father, a former coalminer in the area. More positively, in a marked departure from the dominant narrative of post-industrial decline and working-class populism, recent philanthropic cultural investment in Bishop Auckland instead gives emphasis to an outward-looking sense of place (see Massey, 1991). Together, the cultural spaces and large-scale events re-frame the story of Bishop Auckland through geohistorical connections to Christianity and a proud narrative of North-East England. Articulation of economic, cultural, social and religious exchange, and the continued potential for this, is given in the maxim used for marketing and town plans: ‘Our heritage is our future’. However, not all outward notions of place address inequalities (Kalandides, 2020), raising the question of the balance of the needs of local residents with those of national and international visitors. ¹

Methodology: Storying Bishop Auckland

The storytelling of Bishop Auckland has been told in an ever-widening range of media: from the home of the Prince Bishops of Durham, a cipher of post-industrial Northern decline and Brexit Britain, to a new idiosyncratic religious and cultural outpost; and even more improbably, by enrolling the art collection of the Spanish Gallery, ‘a corner of Spain’ (Ruffer and Portillo, 2023). Storytelling as a methodological approach in the social sciences has explored stories within their interactional, institutional and political contexts (Polletta et al., 2011). Studying storytelling can provide analytical insights into who holds power, revealing issues of ‘authority, inequality, conflict and change’ (Polletta et al., 2011: 110–111). In urban studies, storytelling has been used to understand both social difference in urban heritage preservation (Zebracki, 2018) and inclusive collective storytelling for urban transformation (Goldstein et al., 2015: 1285). In Bishop Auckland, storytelling is harnessed by an HNWI as a rebranding strategy through the vehicle of The Auckland Project to facilitate place-making around narratives of local identity and shared heritage. With triangulation of data across multiple stakeholders collected from multiple qualitative methods and secondary financial sources, the approach to studying the storytelling of Bishop Auckland chimes with Dinham and Loundes’ (2008: 25) term ‘narrative dissonance’ to explore ‘quite different stories’ in faith engagement and urban governance.

Adopting a single case study approach allows for more in-depth understanding of the relationship of philanthropy to place. It is conceptually and empirically significant given the scale of cultural and heritage philanthropic investment to revitalise a small peripheral town, and novel given how religion and HNWI capital converge in urban cultural change. To understand the relationship of evangelical philanthropy to place, the case study comprises a triangulation of data from financial records, town plans and charity/heritage reports; media articles (local and national newspapers); secondary stakeholder interviews; and site visits. Financial data is collected from secondary sources: Companies House, the UK Government, the Charity Commission for England and Wales and the Register of Charities (11Arches, the Auckland Project, the Zurbarán Trust and Lempriere Pringle 2015). Town plans and heritage reports analysed include those of Historic England (2014, 2021), Historic England and Durham County Council (2023), Durham County Council (2016, 2019, 2021) and Bishop Auckland Town Council (2017). Data was collected from 2012, when HNWI Ruffer opened negotiation with the Church of England, until the present. Document analysis was triangulated with physical site visits to Bishop Auckland and attractions including Kynren, the Faith Museum and the Spanish Gallery (between 2021 and 2023). The fieldwork was further informed by over 15 years of recreational visits, observation and conversation, given that family-in-law and close friends hail from Bishop Auckland (or ‘Bish’) and surrounding former mining villages.

The article investigates how philanthrocapitalism is at work in the urban and cultural restructuring of Bishop Auckland, and how storytelling across mixed media and spaces is impacting people and place. As an insider–outsider to ‘Bish’, I have observed emotional and affectual responses to the potential for philanthropic funding to transform the prestige and economy of the place, and complex feelings and attitudes to how plans unfolded, and the small town’s possible futures.

The Auckland Project: Analysing faith in new actors and public–private coalitions in ‘left-behind’ places

The Auckland Project describes itself as ‘One historic town, two thousand years of history’. Ruffer’s involvement began with the Auckland Castle project in 2012, which then became known as The Auckland Project. Ruffer describes a religious vision as his motivation for investment; during an eight-day silent retreat run by the Jesuit order, the HNWI was ‘mugged [by God], challenged to turn my life into one that was working with the voiceless wherever I chose’ (Religion Media Centre, 2023). Ruffer narrates an initial interest in the purchase of Zurbarán’s paintings that had hung on the walls of Auckland Castle for 300 years (Ruffer and Portillo, 2023). In negotiations with the Church of England a bigger deal was brokered by Justin Welby, then Archbishop of Canterbury, in St Ethelburga’s Church in the City of London. Symbolically and materially bridging religion and capital through land, buildings and cultural assets, Ruffer settled on buying Auckland Castle together with the Zurbarán series. The purchase was reported as being for the public benefit of the North-East (Ruffer and Portillo, 2023). Over time, more land and buildings have been purchased and incorporated into a singular vision for revitalisation. The Auckland Project, a registered charity, now includes Auckland Castle, the Faith Museum, Auckland Gardens, the Spanish Gallery, the Mining Art Gallery, Auckland Tower, the Deer Park, Kynren, Binchester Roman Fort and the Weardale Railway (see Figure 1). It further incorporates visitor services, hotels and new restaurants for the intended visitors to the cultural institutions and events. To this end, property interests number buildings in the central marketplace area such as the former Barclays Bank, the Queen’s Head Hotel and the Postchaise Hotel (Durham County Council, 2016: 8). In addition, Bishop Auckland Golf Club is now under the ownership of The Auckland Project. The pageant Kynren is delivered under the governance of Ruffer’s registered charity 11Arches (previously Eleven Arches). The result is that Ruffer owns a large part of the town centre, which is also the historic social and cultural zone, and controls many key heritage and recreation sites.

OPEN IN VIEWER

Figure 1.

Map of Bishop Auckland, County Durham, UK, with cultural attractions marked that are under the ownership of philanthropist Jonathan Ruffer.

Until 2012, Bishop Auckland was known for post-industrial decline and the failure of successive regeneration plans. Issues of governance were part of the struggle for urban planning, with the local town council only afforded limited responsibilities and services mostly run by Durham County Council (Bishop Auckland Town Council, 2017: 8). An overall vision for the town was lacking, with multiple town plans that separated out the town core and periphery, and the development of the outer area of the town – with shopping facilities, a cinema, a gym and large supermarkets in tension with the aims of the plan to revitalise the town centre (Bishop Auckland Town Council, 2017; Durham County Council, 2016, 2019; Historic England, 2014, 2021; Historic England and Durham County Council, 2023). Since 2012, HMWI private investment in Bishop Auckland has been followed by significant levels of public funding capture. The Auckland Trust obtained public funds through the Heritage Lottery Fund: in 2015 one of the largest grants ever awarded in the North-East of England (£9 million), followed by a larger grant in 2018 (£11.4 million). Bishop Auckland was further awarded £212,000 from Historic England in 2020 for the Auckland Gardens Restoration Project of Auckland Castle, Bishop Auckland. As briefly introduced earlier, Historic England designated Bishop Auckland as a Heritage Action Zone, one of 18 such nationally, with the aim to catalyse economic growth by use of the historic environment with investment of £3.5 million and a further £2.5 million from private owners (2018–2023).

Attracting attention towards the Christian heritage of Bishop Auckland and a renewed cultural landscape underpins Ruffer’s strategic plan for urban revitalisation. Ruffer is a devout Christian who has explained his beliefs as Evangelical, Anglican and Roman Catholic (Philanthropy North East, 2024). Philanthropic giving is presented by the HNWI as guided by fundamentalist beliefs that the lessons taught by Jesus are of continued truth and relevance in contemporary society (Philanthropy North East, 2024). A portfolio of charities founded by Ruffer for the regeneration of Bishop Auckland and the surrounding area includes Lempriere Pringle 2015, which is principally concerned with supporting community needs through Christian ministries in England at the suggestion of the trustees (Charity Commission, 2024). The majority of income (75%) at Lempriere Pringle 2015 is generated by investments and trading to support its named sister charities: 11Arches, The Auckland Project and the Zurbarán Trust (Charity Commission, 2024).

The story of a religiously motivated HNWI and distinctive post-secular governance in the town has generated widespread national and local media interest. For instance: ‘Millionaire saves Auckland Castle’s Zurbarán paintings’ (Saunders, 2021, n/p); ‘A highly successful fund manager, multimillionaire and evangelical Christian who wants to make northeast England a centre for religious art and invigorate its economy has received a £9m boost from the Heritage Lottery Fund’ (Tighe, 2015, n/p). In a strategy characteristic of philanthrocapitalism, the interests of the HNWI in the case study are operationalised by charitable entities. Greater restrictions on religious bodies gaining charitable status are circumnavigated through legal and policy rules that allow for a (religiously motivated) individual to register charities. Private equity is invested into non-taxable charitable funds that help to leverage public ‘match-funded’ monies. Drawing on public–private funds, The Auckland Project restored Auckland Castle, and established the Faith Museum, which narrativises the story of Christianity in North-East Britain. The purchase of Auckland Castle offers the HNWI a ‘place-based institutional … stronghold’ that assists philanthropic giving by facilitating networks and infrastructure for donations (see Menon, 2024: 52). The case study illuminates the role of a religious and wealthy actor in the negotiation of tax laws and re-shaping of urban space for the purpose of restoring architectural heritage and developing new assets. The Auckland Project concretises the importance of religion in the contemporary urban landscape. Post-secular arrangements are further embedded where Auckland Castle continues to hold an office for the Bishop of Durham and the chapel is used for a weekly communion service. Led by an HNWI, the revitalised landscape reveals overlapping arrangements of religion-secularism and public–private, in an extensive restructuring of Bishop Auckland’s inner urban core.

Levelling up and regionalism: Tensions within new coalitions

Regional investment in County Durham through the Auckland Project can be viewed as a precursor to the ‘levelling-up’ agenda, which it later dovetailed with and gained further funding from. ‘Levelling-up’ to rebalance the economy and regional investment became part of the Conservative policy agenda under Boris Johnson in their manifesto for the 2019 general election. The ‘levelling-up’ agenda was linked to the fall of the so-called ‘Red Wall’ parliamentary constituencies in the North and the Midlands in the general election with Labour party seats moving to the Conservative party (Fransham et al., 2023; Leyshon, 2021). Bishop Auckland was a key ‘Red Wall’ seat that became Conservative – and then returned to Labour in the general election of 2024. Critiques of the ‘substance’ of levelling-up policy have identified issues with little actual devolution of decision-making and new powers, low capacity of local institutions for delivery and how much additional money has been distributed to the regions that need investment most (Fransham et al., 2023). Bishop Auckland secured £53 million in funding from the government from the Levelling Up Fund, Future High Street Fund and Towns Fund. While it should be recognised that not all this funding represents new money, with the High Street Fund first announced in 2018, the new coalitions that have operationalised in Bishop Auckland since philanthropy from an HNWI have been effective in securing economic investment. More has been awarded to Bishop Auckland than to any other town, with importance given in funder statements to the involvement of ‘private investment’ and ‘local partners’.

Yet the public–private partnership in the redevelopment of the town is unstable. Public skirmishes erupted between Durham County Council and Ruffer over the control and governance of funds, highlighting a potential mismatch between risk and accountability. Most notably, disagreement in 2022 between Durham County Council and Ruffer over the expenditure of £53 million from central government’s Future High Street Fund and Towns Fund was subject to public record at a meeting of 190 people at the Town Hall, with subsequent local and national news stories.

Durham County Council Leader Amanda Hopgood released the following statement:

We are disappointed to hear that Mr Ruffer is considering his future in County Durham … [But] we cannot always comply with specific demands that are made in respect of public money. We understand that Mr Ruffer is requesting more direct control of central government funding that is allocated to the county council for investment in Bishop Auckland in consultation with communities. (Northern Echo, 15 March 2022)

Ruffer escalated the dispute by writing directly to then Secretary of State for Levelling Up Michael Gove, threatening to withdraw his estimated £50,000 per day of funding from Bishop Auckland unless his charity The Auckland Project was more fully involved in decision-making (Ruffer and Portillo, 2023).

Wealthy philanthropists are increasingly seeking to donate their wealth while alive. In philanthropy, ‘giving while living’, after Andrew Carnegie, brings supposed benefits for the donor in building a relationship with the charitable cause and networks that can maximise impact (McGoey and Thiel, 2018; Menon, 2024: 33). The role of a wealthy actor in urban transformation further recalls a tradition since Thatcherite Britain of business elites working in partnership with government to deliver policy (Peck, 1995; Ward et al., 2015). But the contradictory nature of capital and power, as identified by Peck, emphasises how these elite businessmen cannot have direct access to the public purse. The apparent distrust between Ruffer and Labour local government is rooted in a history of accountability gaps and vacuums, and loss of democratic control evident from the growth of public–private partnerships and use of subcontracting which grew during the New Labour period. For, as Hood et al. (2006: 44) write, ‘the resulting fragmentation, disaggregation, and institutional complexity within the public sector’ erodes ‘traditional Weberian notions of bureaucratic control and accountability in the public sector with institutional complexity obscuring who is accountable to whom for what’. In this event, an HNWI holds autonomy over charities, trusts and investments, while seeking a larger share of power in publicly funded projects that impact upon his vision for the town’s future.

The competing narratives reveal fault lines between public and wealthy donor investment but also Conservative and Labour party political affiliation, with the HNWI drawing on networks of right-wing Westminster and private coalitions in tension with the decision-making powers of a (female-led) left-wing, local government leadership. The outcome of the public dispute was the establishment of the Bishop Auckland Strategic Advisory Board, with democratically elected representatives (councillors from Durham County Council and Bishop Auckland Town Council, MP) and non-elected members from local projects, boards and volunteers (The Auckland Project, Historic England Heritage Action Zone, Let’s Clean Up Bishop Auckland, Brighter Bishop Auckland Regeneration Partnership and Bishop Auckland Stronger Towns Board). Accountability via the establishment and composition of the Bishop Auckland Strategic Advisory Board is limited, however, by Ruffer’s direct involvement through the Auckland Project and 11Arches in four of five local projects and boards.

Bishop Auckland and The Auckland Project: Competing narratives of place-based philanthropic giving

Ruffer’s vision of philanthropy is grounded in what can be understood as post-secular capitalism: a distinctive assemblage that combines fundamentalist Christian faith and private capital in urban and social development using existing religious architecture for delivery. Ruffer claims a moral mission in addressing poverty and urban decline in Bishop Auckland as his ‘life’s project’, while enriched by surplus profits made during the 2008 financial crash and Covid-19 pandemic where LLP Ruffer delivered 16% profits in 2008 and 16.7% in 2020 (Dunkley, 2025). While global wealth inequalities are growing, the HNWI advances a moral sense of purpose for regional redistribution of wealth. Ruffer claims that ‘a force bigger than myself – we can conveniently call it God’ – impressed on him and his wife ‘that we needed to go North’ (Ruffer, The Auckland Project 2025b). Dinham and Lowndes (2008) observe the disruptive passion that religious actors bring to the urban co-governance table, which is apparent in the desire for a geographically fairer distribution of philanthropic giving. The vision for place-based philanthropy is conceptualised as channelling money from the metropole to the hinterland. Ruffer describes himself as a ‘pipe’, geographically connecting London and the North-East, ‘where the money flows in one end and out the other’ (Tighe, 2019, n/p).

HNWI philanthropic investment into the urban and cultural sphere of Bishop Auckland combines moral ideology with paternalism. In the words of Ruffer, ‘I want to see Bishop Auckland as a wonderful place socially, economically, morally, spiritually. What I want to see is a change in the way people are’ (emphasis mine) (Smith 2016, n/p). Beyond intervening in the local cultural offer, evangelical philanthropy is evident in the mechanisms of instilling prosocial behaviour in local residents to volunteer, socialising individuals into Christian values, norms and practices (see Grönlund and Pessi, 2016: 560). Moreover, new forms of HNWI philanthropic giving that seek an increased role in urban governance and policy control hark back to the earlier Victorian model of paternalist philanthropy prior to the establishment of the welfare state. They follow the pathways of Sir Titus Salt in Saltaire and George Cadbury in Bournville, with religious philanthropic giving that remodels the urban landscape to deliver wider societal improvements. By professionalising giving through establishing trusts and charities, not satisfied with simply donating money, wealthy donors want to exercise power over ‘shaping the conditions and institutional frameworks’ of society and the way we live (Hay and Muller, 2014: 638).

But Bishop Auckland is not thriving for many businesses and local residents. The town centre is still in decline, with many businesses struggling around a mostly shuttered up main square. Urban restructuring has visibly changed the aesthetics and cultural life of the town centre, yet distributed economic prosperity remains elusive. Recent divided town planning is emblematic of a lack of a unified approach to the vision for revitalisation of Bishop Auckland between public and private actors. The Parish Plan Report (Bishop Auckland Town Council, 2017) and Town Masterplan (Durham County Council, 2016) reveal bifurcated areas of development that are in a degree of tension. Undertaken simultaneously, the Town Plan and the Masterplan focus on different areas of the city and with different constituencies’ views represented. In a resident consultation, young people wanted to see a bigger range of shops, restaurants and bars in the town centre, and music festivals (Bishop Auckland Town Council, 2017: 27). Significantly, young people raised that entry to Auckland Castle (now rebranded as Auckland Palace) ought to be free to local residents (Bishop Auckland Town Council, 2017). ² Councillors have tried to encourage more businesses to open in the city centre, to build upon the opportunities offered by The Auckland Project and Kynren. Significantly, Bishop Auckland’s philanthrocapitalism is directed towards asset capture which is distinct from traditional or neoliberal philanthropy involving charitable giving or supporting business. Ruffer through The Auckland Project has control of many of the buildings around the marketplace and their function. A hotel and sleek tapas restaurant opened to service international visitors to the cultural attractions of The Auckland Project. Attempts to gentrify the urban core are apparent with the replacing of a busy array of pubs, bars and takeaways. Only a sole inexpensive J.D. Wetherspoon’s pub remains.

The relationship of urban and cultural transformation to the social restructuring of Bishop Auckland is poetically storied in the following letter to The Northern Echo, a regional newspaper. The atmosphere of ‘a ghost town’ is evoked:

What concerns me more than these three so-called masterpieces [new public art works] are the three empty public houses that I also got in my photograph, the Queen’s Head Hotel, the Postchaise (formerly the King’s Head) and Castles.

Bishop Auckland was once known as Bish Vegas due to the fantastic night life and vibrant pubs.

Today the Market Place merely lacks the tumbleweed and its transformation into a ghost town will be complete.

Does Bishop Auckland council actually care or is it too busy cosying up to Baron von Ruffer? (Moffatt, 2018, n/p)

Two of the three former pubs mentioned in the letter – The Queen’s Head and Postchaise – are now under the ownership of Ruffer. The change in their function reveals a move away from the nightlife economy and drinking culture that Bish Vegas was formerly identified with. The restructuring of Bishop Auckland recalls the important work of MacLeod (2002: 602) on the entrepreneurial city which is ‘tightly disciplined’ in architectural forms and permitted social practices to ensure the promotion of a particular urban image.

Still the new cultural landscape has found local supporters. Kynren, the outdoor pageant that takes place on a 7.5-acre stage in Auckland Castle, is brought to life by 1000 volunteers (termed ‘Archers’). These volunteers give their time and energy unpaid in a commitment to Kynren’s success: 87% of Archers live in Bishop Auckland and 80% return ‘year after year’ (11Arches, 2023: 11, 7). Kynren is an adaptation of the Anglo-Saxon word for ‘generation’ or ‘family’ (Bartie et al., 2020: 281), with the show marketed as ‘The Story of Us’. Volunteering can be viewed as ‘non-monetary acts of philanthropy … stimulated by a passion for place’ (Warren and Jones, 2015: 283). Early audience figures for each performance of Kynren in the summer of 2016 were also strong – 8000 per show (Bartie et al., 2020: 8). Seven seasons after opening, ticket sales have reportedly maintained momentum, only dropping 4.3% in 2022 versus 2019, despite the impact of Covid-19, while revenues per show increased by 13% (11Arches, 2023: 6). While straightforward to critique as a prestige project for an HNWI, there is a more complex picture apparent for The Auckland Project given that many local residents appear supportive of a creative project that has invested in the story, people and place in which they live. AGLOW – Auckland Palace’s annual light trail from 2023 onwards – is also suggestive of the augmentation of the nightlife economy into one more inclusive for families and older people. Volunteering in culture and the arts ‘materially shapes places, and the cultural forms created with(in) places’, but it is also asymmetrical in power and benefits where non-monetary rewards are not compensation for unpaid work (Warren, 2014: 283). In an area where many are living in poverty, working for free is challenging. As the local resident in the Northern Echo letter raises: Are elected councillors allowing the wealth of Ruffer to dictate urban and cultural change in the town? Who is benefitting most from the urban governance arrangement involving HNWI religiously motivated philanthropy?

Discussion and conclusions

The evangelical philanthrocapitalist vision for a new urban and cultural landscape that revitalises a Christian heritage site is characterised by a capitalist approach that charges at the point of entry. The restructuring of the town centre suggests an asymmetry of power where The Auckland Project under the authority of an HNWI philanthropist is shaping culture and business deemed appropriate in the urban core, rather than addressing social inequalities. A major critique of philanthropy is that wealthy donors typically give to causes that support their own interests (Hay and Muller, 2014; Schervish, 2007). Harrow (2010: 132) makes this clear: ‘Support for beneficiaries in the same work group or social class, or for co-religionists or political sympathizers, has been a hallmark of some kinds of philanthropy’. Direct personal benefits are notable in Bishop Auckland given public–private investment in the Auckland Castle building and gardens in which the wealthy individual and his family now resides. Beyond tax reliefs from monetary and asset donation, and hereditary wealth management skills, philanthropy generates status and non-monetary rewards, including the potential for British honours and peerages. Given Ruffer’s role as Chair or Trustee to the charitable organisations, alongside his wife and daughter (appointed Directors of the Auckland Trust and Trustees of Lempriere Pringle 2015), it could be argued, following Schervish and Havens (2001: 102), that ‘wealth holders exhibit a pattern of care that radiates from self and family to community and society’.

Nevertheless, rather than simply condemning philanthropy, this article seeks a more nuanced approach, answering the recent call by McGuirk (2025: 1, 2) for the need to ‘understand how philanthropy’s powers are assembled’, including ‘philanthropy’s shaping of the rules of the game and the labours through which philanthropy is indeterminately localised and contingently worked out on the ground’. In Bishop Auckland, the power of storytelling is harnessed by an HNWI which shows its strategic effectiveness in urban revitalisation, ‘where political transformation becomes possible, even if we cannot know in advance where our stories will lead’ (Cameron, 2012: 588). Storytelling that speaks through the new cultural landscape aims to create a better image for what has symbolically been characterised as a ‘left-behind’ place. While geographically and socially selective, place-based philanthropy can give new emphasis to the importance of heritage for regional identity and pride. An ambitious plan has been catalysed for urban and cultural revitalisation based on an HNWI vision that Bishop Auckland’s heritage is its future. Yet the future of the town is being built, quite literally, upon the foundations of a Christian past with an ‘emerging urban form’ that is ‘increasingly choreographed through the control over and purification of urban space’ (MacLeod, 2002: 603).

More progressively, the geographical imagination of the project recognises the significance of regionalism in culture and the arts, addressing the issue of London and the Rest. Dorling and Hennig (2016) have shown that UK-based philanthropy for culture and the arts is particularly geographically unequal, with the vast majority concentrated in Greater London. The case study thereby expands the horizon of new research that attends to philanthropy in ‘the urban age’ (Fuentenebro and Acuto, 2022: 1945) and ‘leveraging cities’ (Montero, 2020) to add further scrutiny to wealth elites outside ‘global finance hubs’ (Higgins, 2022: 1271) by investigating the role of philanthropy ‘elsewhere’. Recognition is given to how flows of capital and policy capture by elites including HNWIs are at work beyond global or large cities in small towns and rural surrounds. Critical attention is paid to potential public–private governance strategies through HNWI philanthropy and leveraging public funding, directing more cultural resources, infrastructure and employment to under-served regions.

The close relationship between place-based philanthropy and austerity urbanism is laid bare where there are few or no other alternative investments. It recalls the empowerment of business elites in the UK in the early 1990s when control over the voice of the city was displaced from elected city councillors as a wider range of networks, agencies and groups moved to claim this right (Peck, 1995). As a legacy of Thatcherism, the apparatus of the state changed, enabling space for business elites and the role of other ‘disorganised capital’ including philanthropy and HNWI intervention. The role of wealthy actors in urban co-governance is part of a worldwide trend away from procurement to using public–private partnerships for capital projects where HNWI and business acumen are seen as adding value (Hood et al., 2006: 40). In this case, it differs from the tradition of business elites as the individual donor is not enrolled in the delivery of the state or working in the parameters set by the central government (Peck, 1995: 31). Instead, the religiously motivated HNWI is a modern-day paternalist establishing their own charities and retaining autonomy from the state while trying to secure public funds for the delivery of urban and cultural heritage revitalisation. Due to a vacuum opened up by distanced local political leadership and continued economic withdrawal with a shrinking of the state and services, a political space has been created for new maverick urban elites. In a small town, this political space is at risk of capture by an HNWI given economic power which affords a stronger leverage over the urban and cultural vision: there is clear vulnerability if the investor were to pull out and reinvest elsewhere. The potential for withdrawal recalls the threats made by corporations to leverage tax breaks and other benefits in order to remain rather than relocate (MacLeod and Jones, 2011).

A stark reminder of the impact on peripheral places of HNWI withdrawal is Sark, the Channel Islands, where the Barclays Brothers bought a large share of land but where many hotels and properties now lie derelict, while the cost of living and rental costs are increasingly unaffordable for islanders. In Irlam and Cadishead, Manchester, legacy planning has established the Hamilton Davies Trust, with three trustees making joint decisions on grant distribution and a gradual shift towards volunteer-led delivery. Meanwhile, comparative examples from Saltaire and Bournville from UK philanthropic urban history support a move towards a wider ecology of actors, intermediaries and coalitions in boards for charities and trusts. As Ruffer has widely shared, Bishop Auckland is framed as a ‘25-year project’ – a project that is now half done. This raises the question for further investigation of what the legacy plan is.

Philanthropy’s engagement with urban agendas, including policies and processes, in the case study reveals a novel model of religious urban development distinguished by asset accumulation enrolled in the service of the revitalisation of Christian heritage. Reopening a religious heritage building, a large-scale pageant celebrating Christian North-East England and a dedicated Faith Museum places religion at the core of urban revitalisation through creating cultural and heritage tourism. The Auckland Project is attendant to regional inequality in the redistribution of philanthropic wealth and public funds for prestigious projects. However, it raises residual questions on whether urban and cultural restructuring represents the cultural interests and economic needs of local residents or international visitors. Directions for future research include investigation of governance and accountability mechanisms for HNWI philanthropy in economically vulnerable small towns and peripheral places, in particular around legacy planning. It also raises how religious minority actors and groups are involved in philanthrocapitalism and urban co-governance. It remains uncertain whether evangelical philanthrocapitalism in Bishop Auckland can support a sustained and distributed economic revitalisation, and how different communities are engaged over time in the idiosyncratic story and vision of post-secular urban futurity.