Culture Secretary Andy Burnham has stepped into a row about library closures in the Wirral. Wirral Council is proposing to close 11 of its 24 libraries over the next three months, under its Strategic Asset Review. Museums Libraries and Archives council CEO Roy Clare has accused the authority of betraying a “lack of vision”.

But the secretary of state has gone further, setting up a local inquiry – the first of its kind since 1991 - to test the council’s plans for consistency and compliance with their statutory duty to provide all residents with a comprehensive public library service.

“Public libraries play a central role at the heart of our communities, providing a rich source of information, wisdom and learning” Burnham said. “This is all the more true in difficult economic times. They should never be an optional extra for local authorities. I have a statutory responsibility to ensure everyone has access to a comprehensive and efficient service because ready access to high quality libraries for all is absolutely central to a truly public service.

“There is a significant gap in the available evidence on the likely impact that the Wirral’s plans to close 11 branches will have on the community. Ensuring our public library service is fit for the 21st century can sometimes means difficult decisions and I certainly would not stand in the way of any council who wants to modernise; this is at the heart of the review that my department will publish in June.”

MLA backs adult learners

The Museums Libraries and Archives Council (MLA) is launching a £100,000 grants fund to encourage museums and libraries to open up their facilities to adult learners.
Grants of up to £5,000 will be given to organisations which make available meeting rooms or collections to self-organised groups of learners. The MLA will also establish a new Adult Learners Board, co-chaired by MLA chief executive Roy Clare, to oversee the development of a framework for informal adult learning by March 2010.
The moves are part of the MLA’s contribution to the Government’s White Paper on informal adult learning which takes place outside formal courses in colleges and other education institutions. Secretary of State at the Department of Innovation, Universities and Skills, John Denham, said: “Museums, libraries and archives have inspired and supported generations of learners. Open to everybody they play a vital role in widening access to lifelong learning opportunities in every community.”

Tale of two cities

Liverpool and Manchester are going head to head with hefty investments in arts programmes this year.
Manchester has unveiled the line up for the second edition of the Manchester International festival this summer - the only international event devoted to new work.
And Liverpool has announced a massive public art trail as one of the highlights of a major programme of free cultural events. Also included is a waterfront festival over three weekends in the summer featuring art, film and music, and
celebrating Liverpool’s links with New York. The council is also planning major new artistic commissions, worth up to £25,000 each, for some of Liverpool’s existing annual free festivals. The City Council has committed £8.4m to its arts budget, which will help fund 67 organisations, including the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and the Liverpool Everyman & Playhouse.
Manchester’s festival will feature new works by Carlos Acosta, Marina Abramovich, Kraftwerk and the first UK joint performance by Laurie Anderson and Lou Reed. The Royal Exchange Theatre will be transformed into a working bingo hall for a new show Everybody Loves A Winner, created by Neil Bartlett, Simon Deacon and Struan Leslie. The festival will also see an unusual collaboration between architect Zaha Hadid and the music of JS Bach.

Brecon saved by Hay
Brecon’s jazz event is to be run by the Hay Festival, the Arts Council of Wales has decided.
The ACW, a major funder of the event, made the choice after inviting interest from arts organisations with experience of major events. The move follows the winding up last year of the company which had previously run the Brecon Jazz festival, one of the most popular arts events in Wales. The Hay team will take over in 2010 but have already promised to arrange a smaller-scale programme of activity in Brecon during 2009.
ACW chief executive, Nick Capaldi, said:”The staging of events in Brecon during 2009 is a real added bonus. We’re acutely aware of the Festival’s contribution to the local economy in Brecon, and we know that the doubts we raised about mounting a festival this year caused widespread concern. ”
Peter Florence, director of Hay Festivals, which now runs seven festivals internationally said, “We were very sad to see Brecon go under and when we studied the root causes we believed we could offer a new way forward. We’re planning some sensational jazz in Brecon for 7-8-9 August 2009, and a radical relaunch for 2010.”

EH launches conservation area survey
English Heritage fears for the future of many of the country’s conservation areas.
It is conducting the first national survey of all 9,300 conservation areas in England with a view to putting some of them on the at risk register.
English Heritage has asked all local authorities to take part in the survey, filling in a questionnaire. The results will be announced and a campaign will be launched on June 23 to help councils, communities and individual residents to draw up plans to protect those most at risk. The heritage body hopes that England will become the first country in the world to have a comprehensive picture of its heritage at risk, including historic parts of cities, towns, suburbs and villages as well as individual buildings.
Dr Simon Thurley, chief executive of English Heritage, said: “Thanks to help from hundreds of local authority conservation officers all over the country, this survey will give us a true picture of the condition of these important, historic places. “
“We will be analysing the results carefully so that we can help to provide answers to questions like these and propose solutions, “ he added.

Manchester could get a Royal Opera House in what culture secretary Andy Burnham says could be the most significant development in British arts for a generation – but at a cost which is almost certainly out of reach for the foreseeable future, according to a report for ACE.

Covent Garden and Manchester City Council have proposed that the Palace Theatre could be rebuilt as a northern branch of the Royal Opera House.

Consultant Graham Marchant’s evaluation says that “potential exists for a huge step change in artistic provision for the region, the largest conurbation outside London - with 10 million people within an hour’s drive time of Central Manchester. Whether audiences will grow to the extent needed remains untested but such significant changes can lead to massive new audiences for the arts”. But it says that it would be likely to cost £100m to create, and revenue costs of at least £15m a year.

Twelve landmark works of art across the country are to be commissioned in a national competition as the major Cultural Olympics initiative so far.

Arts Council England’s £5.4m or the scheme is the biggest single arts commitment to 2012, and the Artists taking the lead programme is being developed in association with the arts councils of Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.

The commissions will be worth up to £500,000 each and artists working in any medium will be eligible, said Moira Sinclair, executive director of ACE London, who is taking the lead in the project.

‘The London 2012 bid was always about more than England’s capital city and more than about sport” she said. “Artists taking the lead illustrates that bigger, bolder vision – or art inspiring people up and down the UK to celebrate the Olympic Games, of nurturing and developing our artistic talent, and of culture and creativity at the heart of our national life.’

London’s first purpose-built playhouse, The Theatre, has been found by archaeologists in Shoreditch.

Built by James Burbage in 1576, Shakespeare performed here and write for the company between 1594 and 1597, and his Romeo &Juliet was almost certainly first performed at The Theatre.

Museum of London archaeologists have found the inner wall of the polygonal theatre, which would probably have had a series of brick piers supporting the upper floors. A sloping gravel surface uncovered by the archaeologists would have been the yard in which audiences stood, exposed to the elements. The direction of the slope suggests that the stage is likely to have stood just south of the current site, where flats now stand. Finds within the yard include a fragment of 16th-century pottery featuring the image of a man with beard and ruff.

A row with the site owner in 1597 led to the wooden structure being dismantled and taken south of the river to become part of The Globe theatre.

But drama will appear on the Shoreditch site again. The Tower Theatre Company, amateur theatre organisation, is planning a 21st century equivalent of the original with the encouragement of both Hackney Council and English Heritage. So far £1.9m has been raised towards the £3.3m building costs.

The museum devoted to the 250-year-old Wedgwood pottery company in Stoke-on-Trent is one of the ten institutions long-listed for the £100,000 Art Fund Prize for museums and galleries.

Also on the list is the Kelvin Grove Gallery and Museum in Glasgow, the favourite two years ago when the Pallant House Gallery won, this time for its Centre of New Enlightenment.

The Art Fund, sponsors in succession to the Gulbenkian Foundations since 2007, have decided to sponsor year to year, and have committed to continuing their support at least into 2010. The Fund said the unexpected resignation of director David Barrie, who lives at the end of Ma, was not connected with the prize.

Also on the list to be visited by the judges, chaired by Lord Puttnam, over the next three months are:

The Braid: Arts Centre and Mid-Antrim Museum, Ballymena, Co Antrim, a £20 million new museum, arts centre and exhibition space exploring the history of the region.

The Centre of New Enlightenment at Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow, inspired by the 18th century Scottish Enlightenment and using the museum’s collections to inspire young people.

Outside the Box at the Museum of Reading which entrusts more than 20,000 precious objects from the museum’s collections packed into more than 1,500 boxes and loaned out to h schools, colleges, care homes, libraries, and local community groups.

Scotland: A Changing Nation at National Museums Scotland, Edinburgh, five major themes affecting life in Scotland from the First World War to the present.

National Trust Museum of Childhood, Derbyshire, which offers the rare chance for kids big and small to get their hands on with its collections in this museum set in the 19th century servants’ wing of 17th century Sudbury Hall.

Orleans House Gallery, Twickenham, transformed from a group of decaying buildings into a thriving and inspirational community hub for heritage, arts and learning.

Rotunda – The William Smith Museum of Geology, Scarborough, one of the oldest surviving purpose-built museums in the country.

Ruthin Craft Centre: The Centre for the Applied Arts, Denbighshire, the most important gallery for contemporary craft in Wales in a stunning new building.

The Sackler Centre for arts education at the V&A, London, one of the most innovative museum education spaces in the world.

Arts Council England is cutting its staff nationally by 24% and streamlining its nine regional offices to save £6.5m a year. The savings are to be reinvested in the arts.

“We need to truly become one organisation which is confident and ambitious and shares knowledge internally and externally” said ACE chief executive Alan Davey. “I want to create a culture that moves away from the false polarities of national versus regional; that has real ambition for the arts and what the arts can do, and knows how to realise it. This proposal outlines a new Arts Council where responsibilities are clear and creative input at all levels is encouraged.”

Administrative costs are to be reduced by 15% in the next year. The national office will remain in Westminster with ACE London moving in to share, and the nine regional arts councils are to be grouped together in four areas - North, Midlands and South West, and East and South East. Four area executive directors would sit on the main board, rather than the current nine regional executive directors.

There will also be a smaller head office; an executive board reduced from 14 to nine; a centralised “grants for the arts” team based in Manchester; and a redefined staff structure with a new focus on customer relations.

A period of formal consultation with all ACE employees has started and will run until May 26. Final plans will then be drawn up and submitted to the ACE National Council in July, and it is expected that all the changes will have been implemented by the end of March 2010.

“This proposal outlines a new Arts Council where responsibilities are clear and creative input at all levels is encouraged” Davey said.