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Chasing the Cultural CrownDateline: 28th November, 2004One of the most encouraging statements I've seen recently came from a comment,reported in the Scotsman newspaper, from Edinburgh city council's director of culture and leisure Herbert Coutts: "There is a real risk," he said, "that some of Edinburgh's peer cities in England will speedily catch up or even surpass it as a cultural centre." My feeling of encouragement does not, of course, come from any adverse effect on Edinburgh but from the fact that - at long last! - cities throughout the UK are taking culture and the arts seriously and are willing to invest time, energy and money in them. Last night I attended a gala dinner celebrating the tenth anniversary of the Customs House in South Shields and got into conversation with a councillor from another authority. One of the reasons she was glad to be there, she said, was that she wanted to learn from the theatre's success so that the lessons could be applied to an ailing theatre in her area. At one time, not so long ago, a council's reaction would have been to close it: now they want to rescue it. All this his may well be because culture is the "in" thing at the moment and that councils see themselves as being in competition with each other for some kind of cultural crown, but frankly I don't care what the reason is. It's just good to see that they are showing the sort of concern that we in the business have been crying out for for years. It is also, of course, possible that they have recognised the economic importance of the cultural sector, which, as many recent reports have shown, is growing all the time. Whatever the reason, this new enthusiasm among local authorities is to be welcomed.
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