2,700 Arts, Culture and Heritage Companies receive £400 Million
The Secretary for Culture, Oliver Dowden, has announced £400 million to aid in the reopening of the culture, arts, heritage industry. With the Governments recent investments, this update has brought the investment across all grants, capital and repayable finance to a grand total of £1.2 Billion.
The funding has been spread across the industry; over £170 million in repayable finance has been offered to the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre as well as other organisations. Another 24 significant organisations have received a total of £81 million including English Heritage Trust, The Lowry and The Sage Gatesh
£23.4 million has been allocated to The English Heritage Trust, which cares for 420 historic monuments, objects, buildings and places. To support investment in essential maintenance and to cover any covid related losses. The North Music Trust, which operates The Sage Gateshead, will receive £3 million to support operational cost before reopening commences and to help them continue their work integrating it’s digital and in-person offerings.
The first round of grants totalled to more than £800 million which was allocated with the aim of ensuring the survival of over 3,800 cultural organisations and heritage sites.This round of funding is aiming to build on the previous round of funding and to aid in the reopening of museums, theatres and performance venues in the Spring and Summer.
These grants have been welcomed by the industry with open arms.
“Our record breaking Culture Recovery Fund has already helped thousands of culture and heritage organisations across the country survive the biggest crisis they’ve ever faced.”
Almost all of the £1.57 billion of funding has been allocated, with over £1.2 billion of funding offered to 5,000 individual organisations and sites and more confirmations of the grants to come over the coming weeks.
This is exactly the kind of news the Cultural industry needs to hear, and it’s fantastic for the industry to feel the industry shifting up a gear once again with the aim of reopening and getting back to ‘normality’ as soon as is possible.