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DURHAM CITY ARTS CLOSES
26.01.2012 / News / 0 Comments
Grant cut is the final straw, says agency
Durham City Arts, the arts development company behind the many of the city’s successful arts projects, is to close.
The independent trust which runs the agency made the move after hearing that its grant from Durham County Council was to be cut.
This follows the decision last year by Arts Council England not to include Durham City Arts in its list of national portfolio companies to receive funding.
“Without this core funding, Durham City Arts could no longer see a way forward financially and sadly made the decision to wind up the company,” said a statement on the company’s website. Board chairman Sue Pitts said "The work the company has done over the years has become an intrinsic part of Durham's cultural life. The initiatives developed with hard to reach groups, some of which has won awards, may well be lost.”
Durham City Arts was founded by the former Durham City Council in 1990 and developed an arts programme which included the Durham Book Festival, Brass Music Festival and Enlightenment - the forerunner to the city’s hugely successful Lumiere Festival of Light.
In the past five years, the company has been focusing on encouraging ‘hard to reach groups’ to access to the arts but has not been directly involved in the massive expansion of Durham’s cultural programme, which has been managed by the local authority itself.
The company will formally close on March 31 2012.
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