Arts funding

Emergency funding of £50,000 has been approved to prevent Nairn Community and Arts Centre in the Scottish Highlands from falling into insolvency.

The "one-off" grant will support increased salary costs due to paying the real living wage, higher utility costs, and maintenance within the ageing premises and follows the termination of previous third-party funding.

Issued by the Highland Council through the Nairn Common Good Fund, the grant is subject to conditions, including providing financial statements that meet the council’s satisfaction and providing evidence that the funding is needed to ensure the continuance of essential service provision.

The release of funds also requires the centre’s board to commission a feasibility study, completed by the end of the year, to investigate a new sustainable management model for the centre.

During a special Nairnshire area committee meeting, the majority of representatives from the community councils, Nairn BID, Highlands and Islands Enterprise, Nairn Access Panel, and Queenspark Residents' Group were supportive of the funding intervention, though many questioned whether it was appropriate to use the Common Good Fund rather than council funding.

Councillor Barbara Jarvie said: “We need to remember if we go ahead with this, it is an emergency investment for the community centre that the vast majority realise is a huge asset for Nairn.

“For the doors to close would have a large impact on the entire community.”

Concerns were also raised by Councillor Paul Oldham that the centre's leadership had been aware of the problems for some time.

Councillor Michael Green added: “I think It is important this is not just a paper exercise. They need to embrace changes in real time."

Kent County Council has launched a public consultation over its plans to save £81m in the next financial year.

Earlier this year, the council made a series of cuts to services, including arts funding, youth services, and community wardens, while also raising council tax by 4.9%.

The conservative-led administration has warned that "further tough choices will need to be considered" and wants to hear from the public which services should be prioritised, as well as suggestions for income generation.

A council statement said: “Significant spending demands and cost increases, largely for the most vulnerable residents in the areas of adult and children’s social care and home-to-school transport, continue to squeeze the budget.

“Complex needs, population growth and people living longer are all factors that are contributing to the financial pressures of authorities across the UK as well recent high levels of inflation and significant increases in national living wage in recent years adding pressure on budgets."

Goldsmiths Centre for Contemporary Art has announced that with “extreme sadness and sorrow”, it will close until October following its occupation by the student-led group Goldsmith’s for Palestine.

The activists have occupied various university buildings since February and last month “pressured” CCA to close on 31 May and for the remainder of its current exhibition in June as part of a widespread cultural strike in solidarity with Palestine.

Among its demands, Goldsmiths For Palestine (GFP) is asking the university to end its involvement with honourary fellow Candida Gertler and her husband Zak, who are “major benefactors” to CCA and have a gallery named after them. GFP claim the couple are closely linked with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and involved with supporting illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

On 11 June, CCA posted that “with regret,” the gallery would be closing its doors until October. The gallery's statement said: "We are closing because a student group has been occupying the space, which prevents us from operating properly as a public art gallery.

“We’re doing this because while the occupation continues, we are unable to fulfil the terms required by our insurers for keeping artworks safe and unable to maintain health and safety standards for visitors and staff.”

As a result, its upcoming exhibition, featuring the work of German artist Galli, has been rescheduled to early 2025, while its residents programme, which houses school groups, student groups, and artist and community groups, has been “paused for the time being.”

Artist Mark Corfield-Moore, who, along with Matt Connors, had his exhibition at CCA cut short after the gallery occupation in May, posted a message of support for the GFP on Instagram, saying that despite the premature closing, “some things are rightfully more important right now.”

GFP told The Arts Newspaper that after initial concession from the university’s senior management following earlier occupations, they had since missed two meetings with the group 

In a statement, the group said: “We reiterate that our action is a direct result of senior management's failures and any decisions made by CCA to close were entirely their decisions. The closure until October was neither a suggested nor intended part of our campaign.

"We were not told that this would be a possibility or outcome of our actions before it was publicly announced, and we had been attempting to negotiate with the CCA in good faith to navigate the de-installations/installations of exhibitions and with the knowledge of impacts on precarious workers at the CCA, namely the front of house staff who are mostly students like us.”