Local authorities

Nottingham Castle will reopen to the public after plans were formally approved by the city council.

The museum and heritage site closed last November due to the collapse of the charitable trust that ran it. It had been open for just 18 months following a £31m redevelopment.

Members of Nottingham City Council's executive board backed a strategy that will see the city centre site open to the public from May. However, the council is yet to decide whether the site will be run by its own museum and gallery service, by an external provider, or in partnership.

Pavlos Kotsonis, the council’s Portfolio Holder for Leisure, Culture and Planning, said: “This is a site which belongs to the whole of Nottingham and I’m hopeful that our approach, which draws on our successful experience of running Wollaton and Newstead, will first and foremost meet with local approval.

“I have no doubt that Nottingham Castle can also become a destination of national and international importance, just as we had envisaged when the £31m of improvements were completed.”

Council Leader David Mellen reportedly told the board: “We needed to get this open as quickly as we can, and we have done that now.” 

Three historic railway arches in Manchester are to be transformed into new training and rehearshal spaces for artists.

The £3.7m project is being funded with £2.3m from the government's Levelling Up fund, £900,000 from Manchester City Council and £500,000 from nearby arts venue HOME, which will operate the spaces when they open in May next year.

HOME director Dave Moutrey said the arches "will allow us to grow the work that we do with artists in the North West, across theatre, film, visual art and digital works".

The scheme is part of the council's Culture In The City project, which it secured nearly £20m of Levelling Up funding for.

Council leader Bev Craig said: "These arches are part of our heritage which have sat unloved and underused for many years. 

"This scheme is bringing them back to life with a very modern purpose – complementing the thriving cultural economy in our city."

Campaigners in Swindon calling for a museum to reopen held a tea party earlier this week to mark three years since its closure.

Swindon’s Museum and Art Gallery has been closed since March 2020, when the first Covid-19 lockdown measures were announced.

Since then, Swindon Borough Council has agreed to sell the museum’s former venue, Apsley House, to a property developer.

The museum was supposed to be rehoused in a new building, but Councillor Matty Courtliff said that inflation had increased contractors’ estimates, leading to a funding shortfall.

Linda Casmaty, Chair of the Friends of Swindon Museum, told the BBC that she was “disappointed and frustrated” by the situation.

“It's not fair on the people of Swindon – it has been identified as an area of low cultural engagement,” she said. “It could be 10 to 15 years before a new museum is built.”

Instead of funding a new building for the museum, Courtliff said the council was looking into installing the museum and art exhibits on the first floor of the town’s Civic Offices, but no timeline has been provided to local residents. 

Campaigners said that the town, which has a population of more than 220,000 people, currently has no art gallery and nowhere to display its art collection.

“You need to be able to see art, it's no use looking at it in a book,” Casmaty said. “We could get so many visitors if they would open this.

“I'm very keen that Swindon could become a tourist destination and this is one of the things we need.”

Nottingham Castle could fully reopen to the public in June if plans are approved at a council meeting next week.

The visitor attraction and galleries closed in November when the Nottingham Castle Trust went into liquidation. 

An executive board at Nottingham City Council will consider a report recommending the authority should take on the castle's running costs of up to £2.1m over three years.

If approved, Nottingham Castle would be run as part of the council's museums and galleries service.

The city centre venue opened in June 2021 following a three-year, £30m renovation project partially funded with an £8m loan from the city council.

Councillor Pavlos Kotsonis said: "We committed to looking at ways to reopen the castle as soon as possible after Nottingham Castle Trust went into liquidation.

"This report recommends a way to do that by using the expertise of the council's well-established museums and galleries service, which has previously run the site and has the skills, specialist knowledge and cultural partnership connections."

The report, which also includes other options such as keeping the whole site closed and only reopening the gardens, will be considered at a meeting on Tuesday 21 March.

Spending on libraries in Britain has fallen by 17%, new statistics show.

Official figures released by the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA), show that £9,982 was spent per 1,000 people on libraries by central and local government in England, Scotland and Wales in 2021/2022. 

This figure represents a significant reduction from the 2020/2021 rate of £11,970 and the £12,646 spent in 2018/2019.

The money libraries made decreased in the same period, The Guardian reported, falling 24% from £868 per 1,000 people in 2020/2021 to £660 in 2021/2022.

During the same period, in-person visits to libraries increased by 68%, from 915 per 1,000 people in 2020/2021 to 1,536 in 2021/2022. 

The number of books borrowed also increased by 58%, from 1,119 per 1,000 people to 1,767.

Web visits fell by 8% as people returned to borrowing physical books after borrowing a larger number of ebooks during the pandemic. 

“The fact that in-person visits are recovering shows demand for library services is still strong,” said Rob Whiteman, Chief Executive of CIPFA.

“Libraries are clearly still valuable to the communities they serve but given the drop in their income, sustained funding is crucial if they are to continue to be a vital part of the community.”

He said the growth in library visits was “encouraging… but the same cannot be said for funding and income levels, which still lag behind”, adding that “libraries are certainly facing a difficult road ahead”.
 

Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) has shared more than £13m across 40 local arts and culture organisation in the latest round of its culture fund.

This year’s Culture Fund grants are the first to be awarded since the local authority agreed a new, three-year approach to cultural investment, focused on the role arts, culture and creativity can play in economic prosperity and the health and wellbeing of people.

“I’m pleased to see that this year’s cohort – which includes music festivals, museums, and community spaces – captures that breadth and depth of cultural excellence in Greater Manchester,” Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham said.

“[Culture and creativity] help shape communities and provide an outlet for us to express our thoughts, feelings, and experiences, which is why the Culture Fund is putting a new focus on organisations and projects concerned with physical and mental health and wellbeing.”

A number of organisations are receiving funding for the first time, including Headspace Bolton, an arts group run by and for people with lived experience of neurodiversity and Portraits of Recovery, a visual arts company in Oldham working with people affected by addiction to drugs and alcohol.

GMCA says it has now increased cultural investment by 40% since 2017.

Upon announcing this year’s funding recipients, GMCA also said it is working with Oldham Council, Arts Council England and Oldham Coliseum to “develop and secure provision in the borough, and funds have been ringfenced to ensure continued high-quality cultural activity in Oldham”.