Two cultural organisations in Preston are amongst the 12 in Lancashire receiving new government funding

Yesterday (November 19), the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport announced that two Preston based cultural and creative organisations are amongst the 925 nationally to receive a share of £107 million in grants and loans, as part of a financial boost from the government’s Culture Recovery Fund.

More than £100 million of this funding has been awarded in grants through Arts Council England, Historic England, National Lottery Heritage Fund and the British Film Institute, and it will support theatres, galleries, performance groups, arts organisations and local venues to reopen and recover.

As part of this announcement, £842,671 worth of funding has been awarded through the Arts Council to support 12 organisations in Lancashire, including Preston's Blitz Venue and Night Club, and They Eat Culture.

Blitz has received £60,000, whilst They Eat Culture, which programmes, commissions and produces arts and cultural work for communities across Lancashire, as well as nationally, has received £32,000.

Ruth Heritage, the creative director of They Eat Culture, said: "We're obviously delighted to have received Continuity Support from round 3 of Culture Recovery Fund, the fund in general has supported our organisation going through covid, and the changes that we've had to make in terms of the work we deliver in Preston and elsewhere. It's fantastic to have been able to secure jobs and also develop some further artistic activity.

"This fund is designed to hopefully steer us back to making the next step forward, to keep going. It is still really rough out there, we're an engagement first organisation and for a long time, during the worst times of covid, we weren't able to do any face to face engagement, so we've developed digital and hybrid ways of working to keep us in touch with communities. We're a not for profit organisation who have worked in Preston for about 12 years so the money directly goes back into bringing arts to as many people as possible."

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

The £842,671 in Continuity Support grants will be awarded to 12 previous Culture Recovery Fund recipients in Lancashire, helping these organisations survive and allowing them to resume programmes and events, meaning people can get back to enjoying everything they have to offer.  

This latest round of funding builds on the over £1.2 billion already awarded from the 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.

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.”

In addition to this, organisations 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 financial 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 application window for the Emergency Resource Support programme will be reopened next week.