Guild protests against cut to arts funding

Writers' Guild General Secretary Bernie Corbett has written to the Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell to protest against the "standstill" in funding for the Arts Council that will amount, in real terms, to a £30m cut.

In his letter Corbett says that:

Only recently we were saluting the Government on its arts funding settlement, which enabled much-needed new funding to be agreed. While this left the UK far behind many other European countries, we could welcome a significant step in the right direction. In particular there was a shot in the arm for local and regional theatre (although the Writers’ Guild does not believe a fair share of the new money was ever spent on new writing).

Now, before the new spending has even had a chance to bed down, we are back into a depressing spiral of cuts. This will mean closures of theatres and companies, fewer commissions of new work, more restrictions on cast numbers and production values, etc., etc.