Isle of Wight arts organisations are set to receive thousands of pounds from a new COVID-19 emergency response fund.
6 Island groups and individuals have been awarded a share of over £160,000 with the largest sums of money going to the Steve Ross Foundation for the Arts, Brading Roman Villa and StoneCrabs Theatre Company. Independent Arts, Ryde Arts and Ventnor Exchange will also benefit from the fund.
The fund – generated by Arts Council England – is designed to alleviate the immediate pressures faced by arts groups over the summer giving them time to stabilise and plan for the future.
Bob Seely MP has welcomed the news:
“I welcome this funding for Island groups and individuals, and I thank Arts Council England for offering them support at this time.
“We need to keep our arts organisations on the Island going. The arts can help to enrich life, raise aspirations and education, support job creation and boost the tourism economy.
“First, we need to first get through this crisis. Second, we need to look to make our Island one of Britain’s leading cultural destinations. Following the period of lockdown, I am sure that Islanders will be looking to the arts to provide recreation, education, inspiration and entertainment. This money will help ensure that the Island’s vibrant arts scene is there to meet the demand for art and culture.”
Lisa Gagliani, Chief Executive of Independent Arts, a small charity that delivers arts-based activities to the elderly & vulnerable across the Island, said:
“We are really grateful to the Arts Council, who are long-term funders of our work, for their swift and generous emergency response.
“When care homes were forced to close their doors to our services, followed by lockdown, ceasing our community based workshops and forcing our small team into working from home, the Arts Council funding enabled us to pivot to a new online service and to continue to pay our staff and arts practitioners whilst reaching more than 1500 isolated islanders each month with high quality arts-based activities to lift the spirit.”
Bob – who in 2018 successfully lobbied for Arts Council England to name the Island as a priority investment area – said he welcomed feedback from arts groups on the Island as to how they were coping through the COVID-19 outbreak.
£161,461 has been awarded to 6 creative practitioners (£18,710) and 6 organisations (£142,751).
Organisations receiving funds:
| Steve Ross Foundation for the Arts | £35,000 | http://www.quayarts.org |
| StoneCrabs Theatre Company | £32,407 | http://www.stonecrabs.co.uk |
| Ventnor Exchange | £8,000 | http://www.ventnorexchange.co.uk |
| Brading Roman Villa | £35,000 | http://www.bradingromanvilla.org.uk |
| Independent Arts | £20,000 | https://www.independentarts.org.uk |
| Ryde Arts | £12,344 | http://www.rydearts.org |
Just think if all that cash went to helping homeless people, abused children, people suffering from mental health problems, now that would be money well spent not for the elite, again.
I agree, Mark. As long as the friends and families of people attending to their second and third homes have entertainment all will be well.
When in hells name was ‘art’ an emergency???
there’s been some way off piste mismanaged cash-grabs with this Covid hysteria.
It’s an emergency, Sir, when you serve on the council and your family have arts projects and businesses. Shame on you for not respecting our leaders’ decision to help their own, whilst tradesmen dip out and some in the real hospitality trade lose their livelihoods!
i agree with taxpayer and mark ive written to Bob asking him why my business wont get any help at all and i mean nothing in any way from the iow council but guess what no reply. maybe i should ask for some crayons. Ive paid my way through my life and i don’t deserve anything. This must be wrong.