Newcastle Announces Cuts Consultation

Published: 23 November 2012
Reporter: Peter Lathan

Nick Forbes, Leader of Newcastle City Council

Newcastle City Council has confirmed that it is proposing to cut its entire arts budget over the course of the next three years in order to achieve cuts totalling £90m, a cut of one third of available resources or an average of £760 per household, equivalent to £158.20 per head of the population.

  • Ten libraries will be closed by 2015, leaving eight still in operation, a saving of £641,000.
  • All grants to arts organisations will be cut, saving £1.5m. This includes the Theatre Royal, Northern Stage, Live Theatre, Seven Stories and the Tyneside Cinema.
  • Subsidy to the Tyne and Wear Museum Service, including the Laing Arts Gallery, will be reduced by £821,000 (50%).
  • Funding for the Great North Museum will be reduced by £150,000.
  • Staffing costs in the libraries, leisure and cultural sectors will be reduced by £515,000.
  • In addition the future of the City Hall, a major music venue, is to be reviewed.

The draft budget proposals will be presented to Cabinet on Wednesday, 28th November and a formal consultation will begin.

In a letter to the Prime Minster, Nick Forbes, the Leader of the Council, writes, “You promised ‘we’re all in this together’ but this is demonstrably not the case. The cut to Newcastle City Council is over twice the national average. If it were in line with the average we should receive an additional £22m for the financial year 2013-14. We have lost this funding directly as a result of your decision to implement cuts to local government unfairly.”

He adds that he is seeking a meeting with Mr Cameron: “I want to explain how cultural facilities like libraries, theatres and museums, so important in transforming our industrial heritage into a platform for creative renewal, are now seriously threatened.”

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