Culture has a huge part to play in the regeneration of Aberdeen city centre, and our wider communities, writes Colin Farquhar, as the arts face budget cuts.
Today, Aberdeen City Council will vote on the council delivery plan for 2023-24. This sets out the priorities for the next year of council activity and, importantly, the budget.
Like many other local authorities across the country, Aberdeen faces hard choices, following and as a result of the Covid pandemic and cost-of-living crisis. Proposed potential savings options have been reported in the days before the vote, and it makes for grim reading.
A total of £46 million of savings required, and that is for this year alone. There’ll be more to come over the next five.
It has now become quite routine for cultural organisations to see their funding listed on
options for savings in city council budgets. January, February and March have become
stressful months, year on year. Annually, the culture sector has to make the case that
funding programmes should continue.
Among proposals this time around are the complete removal of Aberdeen’s cultural grants, to the tune of more than £800,000. Budgets can be difficult to read, and fathom, sometimes. Within that, £815,000 is support for many of the cultural and creative organisations and programmes in the city. The removal of it would cause a huge loss to Aberdeen. It is a larger proposed cut than any I remember in previous years.
I hope today that councillors vote against the removal of this funding for the creative sector, which has gone through so much hardship over the past few years, and continues to suffer in this post-pandemic economy. Costs are high; habits have changed. Times are tough.
Arts and culture provide extraordinary bang for the council’s buck
Unfortunately, as former head of Belmont Filmhouse, recently shuttered due to rising costs and falling audiences, I have first-hand experience of how delicate the sector continues to be. I also have first-hand experience of the good that these organisations do for the city, and the people – how they are missed when they can no longer operate.
I still work with several local arts organisations, including Sound Festival, Open Road (based in Fittie), Aberdeen Performing Arts, and Aberdeen Arts Centre. I know the damage that will be caused, both as someone who has worked within the sector for 15 years and as an audience member, if these cuts are enacted.
If they were to go ahead they would affect almost all cultural organisations, initiatives and events within Aberdeen. This includes some of the organisations that I’ve mentioned above, but also Peacock Visual Arts, Station House Media Unit (Shmu), Citymoves, and festivals like True North, Aberdeen Jazz Festival, Look Again, DanceLive, Spectra and Granite Noir, the latter two of which have both brightened up February with such aplomb.
Alongside this, music provision in schools, the irreplaceable Creative Funding programme and Fairer Aberdeen fund and library funding are also among proposed cuts. Huge swathes of arts opportunities for those who might not otherwise be able to access them.
All of these organisations do invaluable work. And they are full of creative, hardworking people. These outfits provide jobs to around 5% of Aberdeen’s workforce. They bring in between £5 and £12 in additional funding for every £1 the council spends on them. They provide extraordinary bang for the council’s buck. So, I hope these cuts aren’t optioned and carried out.
We simply can’t afford to lose any more
Culture has a huge part to play in the regeneration of Aberdeen city centre, and our wider communities, as we make our way through the economic woes we’re experiencing right now. It would be terrible were this blow to be dealt.
I know times are tough, but reducing support where it is needed will only serve to make life harder, and to widen the problems, both social and economic, which we are experiencing right now. Removing cultural funding will do exactly this.
Beyond immediate job losses, cuts would also lead to the loss of opportunities for freelance producers, artists and practitioners. They would lead to the loss of activities and experiences aimed at the least privileged members of society.
Events and festivals draw residents and visitors alike into the city centre, prompting significant wider economic benefits. The sector is an interlinked and intricate ecosystem, which has connections and tendrils right through the local economy.
The last thing we need is another closure of a dearly loved venue, organisation or festival, or – in a worst case scenario – several of them. The last thing we need is to have another shock shutdown of a long-lasting city institution, another Belmont Filmhouse – another hole in the city centre which just can’t be filled.
We simply can’t afford to lose any more than we already have. The city, and the people, would be much poorer for it.
Colin Farquhar is former head of cinema operations for Belmont Filmhouse in Aberdeen
Conversation