Major investment in arts and culture for projects in the North

ARTS PROJECTS across the region are being given more than £500,000 in funding in a bid to boost their appeal to a wider audience.

Schemes which had successfully bid for funding through Arts Council England’s Cultural Destinations programme were announced yesterday. A total of £1.17m is being invested in arts schemes in the North of England, including £523,000 spread across three projects in Yorkshire.

The funding aims to give cultural organisations the resources they need to increase their impact by working with the tourism sector.

Projects to receive investment include a public arts initiative, Beam, in Wakefield, which will be given £223,000 to promote the city as one of Yorkshire’s leading cultural destinations. The city is already home to the Hepworth art gallery and the Yorkshire Sculpture Park is in nearby West Bretton.

Another initiative which will benefit is Sheffield’s Culture Consortium, which is being given £150,000 to increase the number of visitors coming from both the UK and overseas to the city. The project will include commissioning local artists to create new work, as well as continuing to develop the culture website, Our Favourite Places.

In Calderdale, the Halifax Culture Hub project will receive £150,000 to help attract more visitors. The funding will be used to finance eight themed travel itineraries, as well as a co-ordinated marketing strategy.

Sarah Maxfield, the north area director at Arts Council England, said: “This is fantastic news for the North. This investment will capitalise on the rich variety of arts and culture on offer here – positioning places as diverse as the rural Lake District, the metropolitan borough of Calderdale, and cities such as Sheffield and Manchester as leading cultural destinations.

“Over the coming years we hope to see these ambitious projects encouraging growth in the local visitor economy, and attracting more people from across the country – and indeed the world – to these great places.”