The Stage

ACE’s funding allocations a real concern - Longman

Published Tuesday 2 March 2004 at 13:45 by Ruth Gillespie

Director of the Theatres Trust Peter Longman has described Arts Council England’s allocation of capital lottery money as “a real concern for the theatre community as a whole”.

Longman told The Stage he is concerned that people are unaware of the extent to which ACE has reduced its capital funding in recent years. His comments come after ACE announced that more than £61 million has been distributed among 32 arts organisations as part of the Arts Capital Programme this year - £30 million less than in 2001.

He said: “The arts council has allocated more than £61 million but this is split over three years so we are really only talking about £20 million a year, which is not a lot of money. This is all that is on offer over the next three years and if an organisation has missed the boat this time there is no chance of coming back to the arts council until 2007.

“The total value of the original funding applications was £255 million but less than a quarter of that has actually been made available. While 32 schemes received awards another 132 projects got turned down. Of those only nine are related to theatre and only three are going towards work on existing buildings.”

As reported last week in The Stage, south London theatre Oval House is now facing closure after ACE refused to award a £2.5 million grant for vital redevelopment work on its current premises.

However, director of press and public affairs at ACE David McNeill claimed the arts council has never made any secret of the fact that funds available for large scale renovations are coming to an end.

He said: “It is the big multimillion pound renovations that people focus on but that gives out the wrong message. In the early years we received more money than we expected and it was a very exciting time but even then the majority of projects we sponsored were under £100,000.

“Now we are spending more money on stabilisation and recovery projects. Sometimes investments in the health of an organisation are more valuable than putting money into bricks and mortar. Arts Council England respects the Theatres Trust’s position but there is no quick fix in relation to the lottery funds. This is not a magic pool of money.”

The Young Vic Theatre is among the arts organisations to receive funding this year, with £5 million reserved for the £12.5 million restoration and redevelopment of its building. The City of Wakefield Metropolitan District Council and the Rich Mix Foundation in London’s East End will each receive £5 million to build new arts centres.

Other awards include £4 million to the Aldeburgh Festival to develop a national training and education centre for classical musicians, £2 million to Bristol Old Vic for improvements to disabled access, £1 million to Mind the Gap in Bradford to help build a theatre aimed at people with learning disabilities and almost £1.8 million to Graeae in London towards creating the first purpose-built centre for disabled professional performers.