Council cut to decimate Basingstoke’s community-based arts programmes

Basingstoke Council has given Anvil Arts 90 days’ notice of its intention to cut the organisation’s funding by at least 50% as its five-year funding agreement comes to an end.

The Anvil Trust charity, which runs the town’s Anvil and Haymarket theatres, described the move as “short sighted” and “entirely unreasonable”, and has pointed out that Council funding for the venues had already fallen by 40 per cent over the past seven years.

The main impact of the cut will be on the Anvil’s non-commercial activities, including work in schools, with young performers, and with people with special educational needs, dementia, autism and other disabilities.

The organisation has lost around £1.4 m of income due to closure during the pandemic and had offered to take a further 25 per cent cut in 2021/22 – worth £200k – but the council had rejected the offer.

The council claims that the Trust’s business plan is not fit for purpose – a claim that is described by the organisation as “categorically untrue”.

A Trust spokesperson said: “Every business plan that the Trust has produced since it started in 1993 has been approved by the Council and the Arts Council… Like all organisations, we have updated the business plan for 2021-23 in the light of the COVID-19 pandemic, and this is currently being assessed by consultants employed by the Council.”