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Six areas across England are to be awarded a share of £10.9m to scale up hundreds of creative industry businesses.

Culture Secretary Lucy Frazer announced the expansion of the government’s Creative Growth programme during the WeCreate conference at Manchester’s Aviva Studios yesterday (14 November).

The expansion doubles the areas covered by the programme. Creative businesses in Nottinghamshire, Hull and East Yorkshire, West Midlands, West Yorkshire, Devon and Hertfordshire will now be eligible to access private investment and scale-up advice.

The amount of funding each area will receive is not set and depends on the individual area’s business needs and the number of businesses that apply for grants and support. 

Since launching in 2022, the Creative Growth programme has delivered £28.4m. It is estimated the programme’s expansion will take the total number of creative organisations supported by the scheme to 1,800.

The programme was developed to support government ambitions to grow the creative industries by £50bn by 2030.

Speaking in Manchester yesterday, Frazer said: "We’re already making progress towards the ambitious goals set out in our sector vision, unveiling millions in new funding to drive growth in our grassroots and scale ups and banging the drum for creative careers."

The Natural History Museum's plans to relocate millions of specimens, including mammals, corals and worms, from London to Reading have been criticised by experts.

In a letter to The Times, seven former researchers at the museum and 23 international experts argued that the move would be detrimental and lead to a loss of expertise.

“While most biological research can be pursued on any university campus,” they wrote, “only natural history museums with their collections and experts located in intact and cohesive institutions can lead in this arena.”

The museum announced last year that it would move 28m of its 80m objects to a new facility at Thames Valley Science Park, on land owned by the University of Reading, constituting the most significant move of its collections since the 1880s.

The museum says the move will offer more space for the collection to grow and better opportunities for analysing and digitising specimens. In their letter, critics of the plan questioned why a London-based university could not be found to house the specimens.

Fred Naggs, a former staff member, said: “My take is they considered the collections and the scientists to be occupying prime real estate and that they could simply be moved out of London."

A museum spokeswoman said: “We’re moving some of the collection to Reading to make it easier for us to take care of it, digitise it and share its data with scientists all over the world who are finding solutions to problems like climate change, biodiversity loss and food security.

“We came to this decision by listening carefully to our colleagues and the wider scientific community. As a leading scientific research centre, we think it’s important to unlock and share the value of all natural history collections.”
 

A new study has quantified the additional social value provided by cinemas to its local communities for the first time.

Commissioned by the BFI and Creative Policy and Evidence Centre (Creative PEC), the study used valuation techniques derived from DCMS’s Culture and Heritage Capital Framework to calculate additional social value and found previously unmeasured benefits equivalent to £600,000 a year for each of the six cinemas analysed.

This social value, amounting to £5.18m per cinema over 10 years, is in addition to the value generated by cinemas through ticket and other sales and memberships, which equates to £1.18m annually for the average UK cinema.

Analysis found the six chosen cinema venues – Broadway in Nottingham, Cameo in Edinburgh, Everyman in Cardiff, Light in New Brighton, Ritzy Cinema and Café in Brixton and Vue Cinema in Glasgow Fort – each provide a focal point around which people engage within an area, driving footfall and spending in other areas.

Less than 2% of cinema-goers surveyed said they do not engage in other activities as part of their cinema trip

“Our new research shows that the public derives significant value from cinemas over and above what is reflected in the prices they pay for tickets, such as in the contribution that cinema venues make to pride in place,” Creative PEC Director Hasan Bakhshi said.

“There are obvious challenges in placing monetary value on complex assets like cinemas and theatres, however when done with due care, it strengthens the economic case for investing in culture.”

The survey also found almost two-thirds (63%) of survey respondents agreed their cinema contributed to “their sense of pride in the area where they live”.

When faced with a hypothetical scenario of their cinema in question being forced to close permanently, cinema-goes said they would be willing to each pay £18 on average per year to a voluntary fund to keep the cinema operating – over twice the cost of an average cinema ticket.

A statue of transatlantic slave trader Edward Colston that was pulled down by protesters will return to public display at a museum in Bristol next year.

The controversial monument gained worldwide attention after it was toppled during a Black Lives Matter demonstration in 2020 before being thrown into the city’s harbour.

It was temporarily displayed at M Shed Museum from June 2021 to January 2022 but has been out of public view since.

Following a city-wide consultation and a We Are Bristol History Commission report, the statue will be included in a new M Shed exhibition on protest and racial injustice from March next year.

In a blog post, Bristol Mayor Marvin Rees said: "The vast majority (80 per cent) of Bristol residents who responded agreed that the best place for the statue in the future was in one of our museums."

"To help make this a reality, an application to regularise the legal position of the listed asset, away from its plinth, has recently been submitted, which will go to a planning committee early in the new year."

Rees said the application was submitted following discussions with Historic England.

Last month the Department for Culture, Media and Sport published a five-step "tool-kit" for cultural decision-makers to follow when faced with calls to remove a public statue or monument.

Known as ‘retain and explain’, the government's strategy for contentious heritage assets has, since 2021, been to keep them in place, accompanied by an explanation of their historical context. 

An Elgin councillor has branded Creative Scotland’s allocation of funds in the county of Moray “astonishing” after it emerged that 93% of grants went to a single postcode.

Of the almost £2.26 million awarded in the region since 2020, nearly £2.1 million went to organisations in the IV36 Forres postcode area, according to the Local Democracy Reporting service.

Sandy Keith, the Labour councillor for Elgin North, said: "It’s absolutely astonishing that there’s not one penny for Elgin, and we’re supposed to be building a cultural quarter here.

"Did nobody notice that most of the money’s going to one postcode?"

A representative on behalf of Dance North Scotland, Findhorn Bay Arts and Universal Hall Promotions said: "Yes, these organisations are based in Findhorn and Forres. However, all three organisations work tirelessly to ensure that the wider Moray community benefits from the arts... [They] offer services that reach across the region and have cultural impacts that reach much further afield."

A spokesperson for Creative Scotland said: "In our continued drive to grow engagement with arts and creativity and to help build more diverse, equitable and sustainable cultural and creative communities for the future, we’re in the process of developing revised processes for distributing our funding to individuals and organisations.

"We’d recommend anyone wishing to apply for funding to get in touch with us and find out what support is available to them."

This article has been updated to include a response from Dance North Scotland, Findhorn Bay Arts and Universal Hall Promotions.

Protesters from Art Workers for Palestine Scotland have staged a sit-in at Kelvingrove Museum and Art Gallery in Glasgow this afternoon (10 November).

The demonstration began shortly after lunchtime as dozens of activists sat in the art gallery with flags and banners.

Police have attended the scene, and visitors are not being admitted during the demonstration.

The protesters are calling upon members of the Scottish parliament to publicly demand an immediate ceasefire in Israel.

In a call out on their Instagram page ahead of the demonstration, which was due to end at 2.30pm, the protesters said: "The majority of arts and cultural institutions have been silent as we witness the ongoing genocide of Palestinians.

"We refuse to let the arts, culture and heritage sector to continue as if nothing is happening. No more business as usual in the arts."

The Musicians' Union (MU) and Trades Union Congress (TUC) will participate in a joint demonstration against proposed cuts to live music accompanying Northern Ballet's touring productions.

The General Secretaries of both unions will protest outside Newcastle Theatre Royal from 6.30 pm today (10 November) alongside musicians performing in the company's current production of Beauty and the Beast.

The rally marks an escalation of action by the unions, who are calling for Northern Ballet to reconsider its decision to replace its live orchestra with pre-recorded music for some performances to save money.

Last month, the Leeds-based company announced it had entered into “emergency discussions” with its core funder, Arts Council England, to “reassess the amount of live music” accompanying its touring productions from April 2024 onward.
 
The MU and TUC say the decision puts the livelihoods of musicians in the orchestra at risk and is symptomatic of a "lack of funding in the arts in the North".

Naomi Pohl of the MU said: "Musicians and the magic they bring to live performances cannot be replaced by recordings without a great loss to the art form. We are protesting not just for the musicians and their families but for everyone who believes in the power of live music." 
 
TUC Northern Regional Secretary Liz Blackshaw added: "The arts are a cornerstone of our society, and live music is essential to the fabric of performing arts. We stand with the Musicians’ Union in demanding a stop to this short-sighted cultural vandalism.

"We must protect our cultural assets and the professionals who dedicate their lives to enriching ours."