£446,220 boost for organisations across Cheshire from the Government’s Culture Recovery Fund

The Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport has today (19 November 2021) announced that 925 cultural and creative organisations nationally are to receive a share of £107 million in grants and loans as part of a vital financial boost from the Government’s unprecedented Culture Recovery Fund.

This includes more than £100 million, which has been awarded in grants through Arts Council England, Historic England, National Lottery Heritage Fund and the British Film Institute.  

As part of this announcement, funding of £446,220 has been awarded through the Arts Council to support six organisations in Cheshire and Warrington. This vital funding through the Government's Culture Recovery Fund will support theatres, galleries, performance groups, arts organisations and local venues to reopen and recover. 

Arts Council England has been working on two funding programmes for this third round of the Government’s Culture Recovery Fund: Continuity Support and Emergency Resource Support.  

£382,908 in Continuity Support grants will be awarded to four previous Culture Recovery Fund recipients in Cheshire, helping organisations survive and allowing them to resume programmes and events. This funding will mean people can get back to enjoying everything these organisations have to offer.   

In addition to this, two organisations including Arty-Fact Theatre Company, so far in Cheshire and Warrington have been awarded grants from the Emergency Resource Support strand of funding, with more applications undergoing assessment over the coming weeks. Looking to help those facing imminent risks, and open to those who haven’t received funding in previous rounds, grants from this rolling programme are protecting jobs by saving important arts and cultural organisations.   

 Providing access to emergency funding throughout the winter period, the Emergency Resource Support programme will be reopened. This will give more applicants at imminent risk of financial failure an opportunity to bid for support, protecting even more organisations so that they can continue to create jobs and contribute to the economy. The application window will reopen next week. 

Organisations receiving funding in Cheshire as part of today’s announcement include: 

£275,000 for Storyhouse - Chester’s Storyhouse, home to a library, theatres and a cinema, it is a key cultural venue for the local communities across Cheshire, with more than one million customer visits each year. 

£58,000 for the Silk Heritage Trust, Macclesfield's culture and heritage service. It runs the only Silk Museum in the North of England, with responsibility for Europe’s largest designated collection of Jacquard silk handlooms. The Silk Heritage Trust is also responsible for the Heritage Centre which is home to Cinemac, the only cinema in the area. The centre also provides creative learning opportunities for the whole community.

Culture Secretary, Nadine Dorries, said: 

“Culture is for everyone and should therefore be accessible to everyone, no matter who they are and where they’re from.

“Through unprecedented government financial support, the Culture Recovery Fund is supporting arts and cultural organisations so they can continue to bring culture to communities the length and breadth of the country, supporting jobs, boosting local economies and inspiring people.”

Sarah Maxfield, Area Director, North, Arts Council England said:

“The Culture Recovery Fund has been a lifeline to cultural organisations across the North of England. This unprecedented level of funding from the Government acknowledges the important role art and culture plays not only for the economic prosperity of the North but also for the quality of life of the people who live here. This investment will support many cultural organisations, including museums, art galleries, theatres, art centres and music venues, to continue to provide an essential creative service in person and online to communities throughout the North.” 

Andrew Bentley, CEO, Storyhouse, said: 

“Storyhouse has been one of the country’s busiest cultural organisations during the crisis, we wanted to provide support for our community and work for our artists - that’s not been without risk.  We navigated it safely, but the confidence to do that came only from the amazing support from this Fund. We’ll be emerging stronger as a result and are enormously grateful for this amazing lifeline for our industry. Thank you”

This latest round of funding builds on the over £1.2 billion already awarded from the unprecedented Culture Recovery Fund, supporting around 5000 individual organisations and sites across the country ranging from local museums to West End theatres, grassroots music venues to festivals, and organisations in the cultural and heritage supply-chains.