Bristol City Council plans to cut all £635k of funding
Equity protest against culture cuts outside Bristol City Hall on Wednesday, November 26(Image: Equity/Luke John Emmett)
More than 1,100 arts and culture champions, including many of Bristol’s globally famous heavyweights in the sector, have signed a strongly worded open letter to the city council opposing huge cuts to creative groups.
Leaders from Aardman, Watershed, Bristol Beacon, Bristol Old Vic, Arnolfini, and the city’s Balloon Fiesta are among those urging the local authority to abandon plans in its annual budget to gut all £635,000 from its Cultural Investment Programme (CIP) by 2029.
And it has now emerged that ideas from consultants commissioned by the council to identify replacement funding to plug the gap would generate only £225,000 annually after five years – about a third of the current pot of grants.
A report to the strategy and resources committee, which will vote on the proposals on Monday, December 15, said the money would come from developer contributions, called strategic Community Infrastructure Levy, a new philanthropic fund and a membership scheme to generate grassroots support.
The open letter to the council said: “We are writing collectively as organisations and individuals across Bristol’s cultural sector to express our deep concern about the proposed closure of the Cultural Investment Programme in the council’s draft 2026/27 budget.
“Bristol trades on its cultural reputation, yet after years of chronic underinvestment, the ecology that sustains the city’s creative life is beginning to break down.
“At present, the council invests just 0.1 per cent of its budget in supporting the cultural sector.
“This investment programme is currently paused, with only existing commitments being honored.
“Even before this, the level of support was woefully insufficient, facing cuts of 40 per cent between 2018 and 2023 alone.
“Yet the council’s own research shows that the cultural sector generated £892.9million in economic impact in 2023/24.
“In other words, culture is central to Bristol’s economic success, yet by withdrawing support the council demonstrates a lack of understanding of the underlying ecology that makes this success possible.”
It said the crisis could not have hit at a worse time.
“Bristol now has the most unaffordable housing outside London with opportunities not available to match the high cost of living,” the letter said.
“The result is a city that has become increasingly hostile to the artists and cultural workers who make it thrive.
“The damage is already visible – longstanding cultural organisations are being forced to close while others are scaling back their programmes.
“There are no easy solutions, but it is time for the council to face reality: cultural support cannot be cut indefinitely without severe social and economic consequences.
“Culture is not a luxury – it is the lifeblood of Bristol, and it is time the city invested in it accordingly.”
The local authority’s own research found that every £1 it invests leverages £88 from arts organisations and that the cultural sector reached almost 11million people in 2023/24, delivering £122.4million in social value through health, education and community building.
In an open letter reply to the culture network, council leader Cllr Tony Dyer (Green, Southville) and Bristol One City Culture Board co-chair Cllr Ani Townsend (Green, Central) said they shared the signatories’ passion for the arts and creative economies.
It said: “The financial situation facing our council – and local authorities across the country – is stark.
“Rising demand and costs for the services people rely on, combined with continued real-terms cuts in central government funding, mean we must consider every non-statutory budget carefully to meet our legal duty to set a balanced budget.
“This is not a choice we make lightly.
“No decision has been taken on the future of the Cultural Investment Programme, and the proposals remain subject to many rounds of review until all councillors vote on the budget at February’s full council meeting.
“We deferred these proposals last year to give us time to develop a cultural strategy and explore alternative, sustainable funding models.
“That work continues at pace.”
Performing arts union Equity and other campaigners urged the council to drop the plans at a meeting of the cross-party finance sub-committee scrutinising the draft budget on Wednesday, December 10.
Cllr Dyer told the meeting: “As no decisions have been made on this as yet, we are working through the numbers and responding to the representations we have received from members of the public.
“We will continue to find a way forward to find the best possible outcome for our culture services.
“We want to make sure that the culture sector is able to continue to thrive in the way it has in the past.”