Lights dim on Broadway

The future of The Broadway performing arts venue in Barking, East London, hangs in the balance following an announcement of proposed budget cuts by the London Borough of Barking & Dagenham (LBBD). The venue lost £100k of its local authority funding in 2011/12, and a further £65k was due to go in 2012/13. Strategies including staff reductions and efficiency savings are in place to deal with these cuts, but the Council now has to find a further £10m of budget savings and has published proposals which include terminating all The Broadway’s £432,000 grant funding from 1 April next year. Broadway’s Artistic Director and Chief Executive Karena Johnson said: “What LBBD are now proposing is a cut too far which could see the Broadway ceasing to operate as a professional venue.” The Broadway, which was designed by architect Tim Foster as part of an award-winning town centre regeneration programme, opened in 2004 at a cost of £5m and LBBD described it then as being pivotal to the regeneration of the borough. Located just a few miles from the Olympic Park, it is the only professional public arts venue in the borough and has an annual turnover of £1m. It achieved National Portfolio Organisation status with Arts Council England (ACE) last year and will see its ACE funding increased from £40,000 to £70,000 from April 2012. But as Johnson points out, the increase in grant funding “comes nowhere close to replacing the local authority grant and to be fair was never meant to… there are no big pots of money out there waiting for organisations like the Broadway to dip into. And you can’t increase box office revenues overnight either and remain accessible to our audiences.” The Broadway is working with local supporters to oppose the proposed cut prior to a decisions being made at a Council cabinet meeting on 14 December.