Luton to benefit from new ACE funding approach

£1.5m has been ring-fenced for arts organisations in Luton via Arts Council England’s (ACE’s) new ‘Luton Investment Programme’. Described by ACE as a “new approach” that could “potentially influence how we work with / invest in places in the future”, the programme will allocate between £40,000 and £375,000 to five recipients for activity in the town from May 2016 to March 2019.

The programme is intended to complement the Luton Creative People and Places project but will not be run by a lead organisation. It is organised into five strands of activity, and will see the appointment of a creative producer for the town, the establishment of a new cultural celebration, the creation of a public realm arts plan, a professional development programme for arts providers in the town and the development of a ten-year vision and strategic arts and cultural plan for Luton. Organisations, individuals and consortiums were all eligible to apply, and successful applicants are due to be announced.

ACE noted that whilst Luton is a place with low engagement in the arts, it is well placed to develop a strong arts programme as one of three “super-diverse” populations outside of London in which no ethnic group is in the majority. Luton Culture, the organisation leading the Creative People and Places project, welcomed the new approach, saying that since 2010 arts investments have “failed” to have “long term strategic impact on the town” and “applications to Arts Council funding have not been very successful”.

Three large publicly funded organisations in Luton have been dropped by ACE in recent years. The Luton Centre for Carnival arts, created in 2009 and said by ACE to mark a “paradigm shift for the future of the UK carnival sector”, lost all of its funding as an NPO in 2014. In addition, both The Hat Factory, which is now part of Luton Culture,  and Theatre Is…, which conducted much of its work in Luton, lost their status as Regularly Funded Organisations (RFOs) in 2012/13.

Luton Culture told AP of its hope that the requirement for successful applicants to demonstrate a legacy “will enable existing and new arts and cultural organisations to flourish longer-term”. Luton Borough Council agreed, saying that a key element of all the bids “is to demonstrate how impacts will be sustainable in the longer term beyond the three-year funding”. ACE confirmed that it will examine the impact of such a legacy on the arts and cultural infrastructure in Luton over the three years in which the funding is active via an independent evaluation.