Emergency Bailout Saves 55 British Art Institutions

The Albemarle Music Centre and Hull Truck Theatre Photo: Peter Church

Due to the tough economic climate following the recession, more than 50 arts institutions in England have required emergency funding totaling £14 million from the Arts Council England in the past three years, the BBC reports. About 55 theaters, galleries, and arts organizations have received money from the Arts Council due to what’s qualified as, “serious financial risk.”

The Arts Council emergency funding is intended for those who receive public funding annually but have run into financial trouble. In order to qualify, the council must judge the venues to both be irreplaceable and able to emerge from their financial woes with a one-time influx of cash.

Arts Council England has refrained from announcing the most recent beneficiaries because, they believe doing so might, “prejudice the commercial interests of the organizations concerned.” Out of the 13 recipients of emergency funding in 2014, only the Hull Truck Theatre has been named publicly. It received 11 grants over the past three years, totaling £1.5 million. The most recent of which was awarded in February 2014 and amounted to £300,000.

Hull Truck’s executive director Janthi Mills-Ward told the BBC: “Being the second-lowest funded producing theatre in the Arts Council’s National Portfolio, alongside a difficult economic climate, it has been necessary to secure additional support.”


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