Council cut-backs squeeze the visual arts in Leicester
Plans for the re-location and re-opening of Leicester’s former City Gallery as a Contemporary Visual Arts Gallery have been scrapped, due to fears of falling revenue funding and the potential for escalating capital costs. The City Council has concluded that the most cost effective solution to sustaining visual arts provision in the city will be to integrate contemporary visual art services within the exhibition programme and overall offer at New Walk Museum and Art Gallery in the city. The Council aims to continue with “the most successful elements of the previous offer at the City Gallery, including some exhibitions, retail, learning and community engagement activities”: the new proposals will provide a lower quantity of service provision, but, according to an analysis of options by Richard Watson, Leicester’s Director of Cultural Services, will enable the city to host occasional major exhibitions with minimal capital costs and lower revenue costs. The new proposals will not be dependent on continued Arts Council England funding towards revenue costs: ACE currently contributes over half of the £266K annual revenue funding costs for City Gallery, and the council expects to save £95k of its own £129k budget by implementing the new plans.
News of the Leicester’s plans to cut back its visual arts provision has coincided with the publication of an economic impact study of the performing arts in the region. Researchers from De Montfort University have found that 12 venues and festivals between then have an annual economic impact of more than £21m, attracting a total audience of more than 600,000 people who each year spend £17m outside the venue or event. The organisations themselves spend £4.3m with local suppliers, sustain a total of 377 jobs, and use 26,000 hours of volunteer time. Those involved in the study were 2 Funky Arts, Curve, Foot in Hand Dance Company, Metro Boulot Dodo, Centre Stage Rural Touring, Big Difference Company, Phizzical productions, The Y Theatre, De Montfort Hall, The Spark Childrens’ Arts Festival, Embrace Arts at the Richard Attenborough Centre and the Centre for Indian Classical Dance.