Grants worth £5m go to support region’s arts

THE ARTS Council has today announced that more than £5m has been awarded to over 700 individuals and independent organisations across Yorkshire through its Covid-19 emergency response package.

With support from the National Lottery and Government, 553 grants totalling £1.2m have been awarded to individual artists and creative practitioners across the region.

And £3.8m has been awarded to 185 organisations across Yorkshire.

Leeds West Indian Carnival and the New Adelphi Club in Hull are two of 738 that have benefited from the £5,072,847.

Announced in March, the Arts Council’s Emergency Response Package was designed to help alleviate the immediate pressures faced by artists, creative people, arts organisations, museums, and libraries over the summer.

Pete Massey, director in the North at the Arts Council, said: “Yorkshire has an incredibly rich cultural and creative ecology full of fantastic artists, theatres, galleries and festivals so it’s heart-breaking to see so many of them negatively impacted by the pandemic. I am however really pleased that we have been able to fund so many individual artists and organisations through our Emergency Response Funds and I hope that our support will enable them to tackle the immediate challenges that they face during these unprecedented times.

“Thanks to players of the National Lottery we have been able to support a really wide range of applicants across Yorkshire including a significant number of first time applicants to the Arts Council, many of whom are from underrepresented groups.”