I'M standing on a bridge in light drizzle, packed in with hundreds of other people.

A whale leaps out of the River Wear in the moonlight, and returns to the water with a huge splash of sparkling water droplets – a magical moment. And no less magical for being a concoction of sound, light and digital projection.

This was me at the last Lumiere Festival in Durham, one of the organisations supported by the Arts Council as part of our National Portfolio – and one of the leading European festivals of artworks made with light and projected images.

An event conceived by outdoor arts company Artichoke and supported by the visionary Durham County Council, which has grown rapidly to have an audience of 200,000, enhancing Durham's attraction as a tourism destination for national and international visitors.

Lumiere typifies the power of arts and culture in the North East – to move us, to give us pause, create delight and wonder – but also the power to boost the economy, to attract visitors and to shift perceptions of a place.

I was working in Newcastle at the time that the Quayside began its regeneration – it’s hard to recall the dark, dirty and somewhat dangerous atmosphere of those cobbled streets under the Tyne Bridge now they are lined with lively restaurants and bars. BALTIC, the Sage and Live Theatre were key to that process – in a physical transformation on both sides of the river and a sea change in its reputation, which inspired later approaches to culture-led regeneration across the whole country.

Now the same drive can be seen across Teesside, County Durham and Sunderland – to use culture to transform people’s lives, grow jobs and tourism and enhance positive perceptions of the area.

The refurbishment of Middlesbrough Town Hall into a top-class cultural and heritage destination, the national stature of the imposing Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art (mima) and the wonderful Hullabaloon children’s theatre in Darlington, due to open in December this year all contribute to this growth in opportunities.

The Arts Council is proud to have played a role in all three of these projects, and in this ongoing transformation of the region. We are working with partners in local government, universities, and the private as well as the cultural sector to respond to new ambitions.

Our mission as the national development agency for arts and culture is to look after England’s cultural assets and to enable art and culture to be a part of everyone’s lives, no matter who they are or where they live.

This week we announced details of how we will be investing a significant proportion of our funds from 2018 to 2022, especially in the National Portfolio – the collection of arts and culture organisations that form the backbone of our investment and receive regular funding.

We’re investing more money across the North-East to reach new places and new people.

Ten organisations join the national portfolio including the beautiful Bowes Museum; the Tees Valley Museum Group; the newly-formed Sunderland Culture Company, which will manage much of the city’s artistic offering, and Middlesbrough Town Hall, where a new musical programme will be developed to attract new audiences.

We’ve increased our investment to seven existing portfolio organisations, including Stockton International Riverside Festival where our extra support matches additional local authority investment and will enable the festival to become even bigger and better.

And we are continuing to invest in success – at Beamish Museum, to Durham’s distinctive festivals such as Brass! and Lumiere, to TIN Arts for their excellent work in dance and to ARC Stockton – which brings quality performance to the town and is a leader nationally in support to emerging artists and performers.

Our increase in support for the Tees Valley is significant and recognises the emphasis on culture in the devolution agreement there and the strong support from the Tees Valley Combined Authority (TVCA) and individual local authorities – evidenced by the unanimous support for the Tees Valley bid to become the UK City of Culture in 2025.

Other investment is flowing into the North-East to support culture. Earlier this year it was announced that the Tees Valley Combined Authority would receive £1,332,500 through the national Great Place Scheme, a joint initiative by us with the Heritage Lottery Fund and Historic England designed to maximise the contribution of culture to local economic growth and wellbeing. Similar programmes were successful in Sunderland and rural County Durham.

And Creative People and Places projects – the Cultural Spring in Sunderland and South Tyneside; bait in Northumberland and East Durham Creates in County Durham are Arts Council supported programmes giving local communities the ability to generate more arts and cultural events at a local level.

Partnership and leadership, determination and ambition were key to the transformation of the Newcastle and Gateshead Quayside two decades ago – I see those same qualities in the North-East’s approach to culture now.

That approach will surely deliver results and we are pleased to be playing our part.