£625k public art plan slammed as waste of money
BE BETTER SPENT ON REMOVING WEEDS
A LEADING Kirklees Tory has laid into plans to spend hundreds of thousands of pounds on public art to brighten up Huddersfield town centre and aid its cultural revival.
In a scathing attack Clr David Hall, the leader of the Conservative group on the council, said spending £625,000 on “fripperies” was a waste of money. He suggested putting the cash into formal regeneration projects instead.
Clr Hall, who represents Liversedge and Gomersal, was reacting to a report put to Kirklees Council’s decision-making Cabinet highlighting plans for public art.
Labour’s Clr Rob Walker championed the delivery of a public arts programme as part of the so-called Huddersfield Blueprint, an ambitious project that seeks to rejuvenate the town centre.
Clr Walker said the broad approach to public art involved town centre events as well as permanent and temporary pieces.
“It’s an absolutely key part of the regeneration of the town centre – to make it an attractive and interesting place for people to visit and to encourage people to come in and use the town.
“Elements of it are already being delivered and it’s very much linked to other programmes such as Growing Seeds, WOVEN and the Year of Music (in 2023). We will be working with a lot of different partners within the community and organisations such as Huddersfield BID.”
He revealed there would be a focus on the local culture and environment as well as local artists and that funding would be “embedded” in other Blueprint projects.
None of that appealed to a clearly unimpressed Clr Hall, who said he had calculated art worth £625,000 in the report and that given there was no separate budget for the pieces it represented cash that would not be spent on regeneration.
“It will instead be spent on these fripperies,” he said. “It mentions things like pop-up bandstands. There’s been a bandstand in
Dewsbury for years now and it hardly has any use at all. It was a complete white elephant when it was put up. I’d love to see it used but Kirklees (Council) has proved that even if they put one up they can’t put anybody in it. Public poetry just leaves me completely stone cold.”
He added: “Maybe you could take some of this money and spend it on actually titivating the borough up a little bit and making sure that we don’t have 3ft-high weeds at the corners of our roads. This won’t increase footfall at all.”
There was support for the project from the Greens’ Clr Andrew Cooper, whose Newsome ward includes Huddersfield town centre.
He urged those commissioning artworks “to be brave” and to embrace bold choices.
He said: “Challenging artwork – things that some people might get upset about – is often worth doing because it becomes a talking point.
“Don’t go safe with public art. Take risks.”
The report was approved by Cabinet.